How does one even begin to define a wacky Italian motion picture like Island Of The Fishmen? What possible words could one use to describe such a film? My particular choice of words would be “Silly,” “Campy,” “Infringement,” and “Blender.” My explanation for using those words becomes very clear not too terribly long after the movie begins and a vague haze of H.G. Wells-ness envelops the screen. Soon, several shades of H.P. Lovecraft appear. And then, just when you think it can’t get any weirder, the movie becomes very Italian and drops an ancient Greek bomb on you.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself (not to mention giving too much of the peculiarities away). Set in 1891, the movie starts off with several ragged-looking men adrift in a lifeboat. Their mother vessel—a prison ship—had sank a week earlier in the Caribbean Sea, and now only physician Lt. Claude de Ross (the great Claudio Cassinelli) is left among a den of thieves, rapists, and murderers. When some unseen sea creatures force the lifeboat to the shore of an uncharted volcanic island, the survivors (whose numbers dwindle rapidly) find themselves surrounded by something resembling a daytime Italian soap opera written by a very high Jules Verne and an extremely drunk Edgar Allen Poe. Voodoo, volcanoes, men being turned into amphibious life forms by mad biologists, and even the lost continent of Atlantis all come in to play at one point or another.
Ringo Starr‘s beloved wife Barbara Bach gets top-billing in this fantasy/adventure outing from director/co-writer Sergio Martino (who also brought us 2019: After The Fall Of New York) as 
the captive would-be-mistress of an evil tycoon named Edmond Rackham. Portraying Rackham is Richard Johnson (Zombi 2)—who makes sure his performance is about as big of a Rack-of-ham as there can be. Joseph Cotton also makes an appearance or two, tearing up and eating any letters of credibility he may have had in the process.
Article comments