The island where monsters live in golden masks. Like many Italian directors in the 1970s, Sergio Martino worked under several pseudonyms (Julian Barry, Martin Dolman, Serge Martin, Christian Plummer, George Raminto) and in a variety of genres - mondo, giallo (an Italian variety of thriller), spaghetti western, adventure and "cannibal cinema", fiction. His first directing work was the mondo film The World of Sex (1969). Then for 4 years Sergio Martino shoots 10 films that brought the director fame: “The Tail of the Scorpion” (1971), “The Eye of the Black Cat” (1972), “Torso” (1973) and others.
With the decline in audience demand for Jallo films, Martino switched to the production of crime films and erotic comedies. Like most Italian directors, in the nineties Sergio Martino worked mainly in television, when the film industry of the country was experiencing a serious financial crisis that did not allow to invest seriously in film. It was during this period that Martino decided to make the film La regina degli uomini pesce. This tape is a “compilation” of his previous works: the horror film “Amphibian Island (" Monster Island, Island of Fish People) / L’isola degli uomini pesce” (1979) and the fantastic post-apocalyptic action movie “2019: After the Fall of New York / 2019 – Dopo la caduta di New York” (1983)
At the beginning of the film, two teenagers Sam (Giano Gensini) and Tom (Michael Velez) roam the reservoirs of destroyed New York City and survive by hunting rats for food. In fact, rats is a word that different characters will use dozens of times throughout the film, and around which a kind of humor revolves: - It's crawling with rats! This is probably someone's hunting field." - What are you thinking? - Crunchy fried rats. - Look at that big rat! Nope. It looks like an extinct animal called a dog.
The guys, who are very easy to imagine as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn not so distant future, manage to get out of the city, and on the ocean ("Look, what a big canal!) to meet the eccentric old man Socrates (Donald Hudson), who on his “rainbow boat” takes them to the island, where various outlandish animals live. The main adventures of Sam and Tom begin here, because the island is ruled by the Queen (Ramon Badescu). Help them will be a dog named Pegaso, the daughter of the deceased scientist and people-fish, who are not bloodthirsty here, but vice versa.
The film is for a child-teenage category, although the first “thirty minutes” is not as harmless as it may seem at first glance. But the finale is purely fabulous. In general, the “compilation” of Sergio Martino was successful in full, because “Queen of the Amphibians” is not a repetition of “Amphibious Island” and “2019: After the Fall of New York”, but quite an independent film for “distant motives” of previous works.