"Screamers"

Now, here was a fun one, although I can imagine a lot of people finding it trite and boring. To begin with, my wife alerted me to this movie while we were watching a Hellraiser film. She said "there's some movie that has something about a man being turned inside out...."Screamers," or something like that?" And, this is rare. Since I've turned into such a movie nerd/buff, it's not often she'll know about a film I haven't heard of. So, I researched and found "Screamers," and in a now-out-of-print but affordable Scorpion Blu-ray release.

The story of this film and its marketing are almost the best things about it. The film itself began life as an Italian film (directed by Sergio Martino, who also helmed "Torso" and "Your Vice is a Locked Room") called "Island of the Fishmen." It starred Barbara Bach, Richard Johnson and Joseph Cotten, and is straight out of the "Island of Dr. Moreau" playbook. The movie was purchased for American distribution by Roger Corman's company and his team went to work in trying to find a way to sell the movie to the American public.

A prologue of nearly 15 minutes was added, and included appearances from Mel Ferrer and Cameron Mitchell. This had some nice, gory kills, as the original movie was found too tame. And it was Italian!! In the 70s!! There are a few other shots that were added, and the original film was trimmed by 10 or so minutes. The resulting movie is consistently entertaining, although the end is a bit of a mess. But an entertaining mess. We both dug it.

About the marketing: when it was time to release the movie in America, it was released as "Something Waits in the Dark," and nobody was waiting to see it in the theaters. So Jim Wynorski (later to helm the Traci Lords-starring "Not of this Earth") put together a trailer mentioning a man being turned inside out and including footage not even in the movie....and renamed the film "Screamers." So there....nobody gets turned inside out in the movie. Apparently, though, after some theater patrons complained about that not happening in the movie, Corman ordered the insertion of some of the trailer footage (maybe there was other footage, too?) into the release prints. Which was done, but none of that footage survives today. That would have been fun to see.

As you can tell, the story of the movie is almost more fun than the actual movie. But you know what? It's entertaining anyway. And my wife liked it, too. So there. It really is a cross between "Island of Dr. Moreau" and "Creature from the Black Lagoon"....the latter based on the look of the Fishmen themselves. Shots of the halfway-created Fishman toward the end of the picture look exactly like the Creature in the third Black Lagoon movie.

This reminds me: I need to dive into that "Blood Bath" box set from Arrow. Sometime soon. In the meantime, here's the "Screamers" trailer, and remember, it ain't in the movie:

And here's a nice link (from the great Movie Censorship web site) spilling the differences between the American and Italian versions.