I was so loud while watching this movie that my wife had to come to check on me. The sheer delight had overtaken me when East Eddie (Sid Haig) appeared in a film where gigantic-eyed Atlantean people attempted to keep their undersea world alive thanks to a new queen named Syrene (Leigh Christian), who must constantly sire new children, as decreed by her adopted father Nereus (George Nader).

Eddie is part of a group trying to farm pearls for money, which includes what could be the exploitation movies made in the Philippines version of The Avengers: Manuel the Barracuda (Vic Díaz), Logan (John Ashley) and Vic Mathias (Patrick Wayne).

Producer Ashley had the idea that this would be a science fiction version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which is a big idea, while Wayne would only be in the film if it was a family-friendly movie, but it’s also about rebuilding the DNA of a dying world of interbred bug-eyed merpeople, which is a fun juxtaposition.

The underwater scenes are gorgeous, and this has way better production values than many movies made in the Philippines. Yet if it had more exploitation—a fact that Ashley believed—I think it would be a more exciting movie.

This was released by Dimension Pictures in 1973 and rereleased by 21st Century.

You can watch this on Tubi.