L'Isola degli Uomini Pesce (1978) Reviews

This hokey Italian monster movie -- distributed in the U.S. through Roger Corman's New World Pictures under the title Screamers -- was rescued from certain cinematic obscurity thanks to New World's hilariously misleading one-sheet campaign, which boldly declared "WARNING! You will actually see a man turned inside out!" Caveat Emptor, viewers... there is nothing of the sort on display in the film itself. All that's available is a silly sci-fi story about diabolical mad scientist Joseph Cotten busily turning the inhabitants of a remote island into water-breathing "fishmen" to serve the island's sadistic overlord (Richard Johnson), who is trying to uncover the lost treasures of Atlantis. On hand as the nominal sex interest is Barbara Bach as Cotten's daughter, who possesses some sort of telepathic contact with the fishmen, but mainly just poses as seductively as possible while feeding and tending to the rubber-suit mutants. Corman inserted some new prologue footage with Mel Ferrer for the New World print, as well as a few gory scenes intended to snag some R-rated exploitation appeal, but the end product is still laughable as ever. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi