The crew and passengers on board a luxury boat in the Caribbean sea experience bizarre phenomena when the ship ventures into the notorious Bermuda Triangle. Director/co-writer Rene Cardona Jr. assembles plenty of promising ingredients -- a creepy doll, the lost city of Atlantis, a ferocious bird attack, a sea quake, a fierce storm, predatory sharks, and so on -- but alas this movie fizzles when it ought to sizzle: The slack direction, talky script, sluggish pacing, drawn-out and meandering uneventful narrative, lousy dubbing, and padded 112 minute running time make this pedestrian affair a pretty tedious chore to endure. Fortunately, the nifty international cast keeps this picture watchable: John Huston as the crusty Edward, Andres Garcia as amiable first mate Alan, Hugo Stiglitz as the stalwart Captain Mark Briggs, Marina Vlady as the sunny Kim, Claudine Auger as the bitchy Stybil, Carlos East as bitter and spineless alcoholic doctor Peter, and Mario Arevalo as friendly crew member Tony. Moreover, the delectable Gloria Guida looks smoking hot in a red bikini, there are a few moments of effectively spooky atmosphere (several close-ups of the doll as a live baby are truly freaky and unsettling), and the bleak tone becomes more increasingly hopeless and upsetting as the story unfolds towards an uncompromising downbeat ending. Leon Sanchez's sharp cinematography boasts some impressive underwater photography. Stelvio Cipriani's moody'n'melancholy score hits the spine-tingling spot. A merely passable time-waster.
Review of The Bermuda Triangle
