Review of La regina degli uomini pesce

I wasn't even aware there was a sequel to "Island of the Fishmen" until I purchased the specially restored DVD-edition of the original, which also loudly announced the world-premiere of "The Fishmen and their Queen" on disc. Hey, at least now we know why it was such a well-kept secret. This is a seriously stupid and useless movie, unworthy of the cool original. I'm actually surprised that Sergio Martino himself is responsible for delivering this incoherent nonsense, because he stands as one of the best directors of Italian horror and he surely knows better than to exploit his own successful classics…or at least I thought he did. The script is never original or adventurous, only tedious and extremely childish. Martino incomprehensibly blends two premises of his previous movies ("Island of the Fishmen", of course, and "After the Fall of New York") and turns it into a light-headed, bloodless fairy-tale/fantasy flick. Two teenagers escape from apocalyptic New York with the help of an insane race car driver (best part of the entire movie) and head to the open sea, along with an old seaman. They arrive on an island where time seemingly stopped, ruled by a ravishing yet malicious queen. The further events taking place on the island are imbecile, infantile and totally uninteresting. The titular mutant fish-creatures are totally irrelevant to the "plot" and they're only shown through re-edited footage of the 1979 original. Most of the filming sets and scenery look impressive, but that's because you've already seen them in the above-mentioned movies. The only new aspects are the attractive female cast-members (Ramona Badescu, Natascia Castrignano), but that hardly enough to make a sequel worthwhile. The poorly written dialogues are unintentionally hilarious and, on top of it all, the film also suffers from a terrible dubbing. The ending is so incredibly lame it even makes Disney's "Bambi" look like a petrifying horror movie. Trust me, no matter how exceptional it may seem to come across a copy of this extremely rare movie…avoid at all costs!