cinema history class: the bermuda triangle (1978)

The session: "April is the Cruelest Month -- Cardona's Catastrophes"
Four movies by the two Rene Cardonas -- father and son

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: The Bermuda Triangle (1978)
Directed by Rene Cardona, Jr.

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
I hadn't heard of this.

Plot:
After a boat, looking for the remains of Atlantis, sails into the Bermuda Triangle, the passengers start dying in odd but gory ways.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
I remember when I was a kid being all curious about (and, to be honest, a bit scared of) the Bermuda Triangle. It was one of those supernatural-type stories that made its way into popular culture, with just enough behind it to make it seem real to me. In fairness, I don't know how long it was that people talked about it. But I distinctly remember reading an article about it at my father's Aunt Emily's house. And I remember Leonard Nimoy -- Mr. Spock himself! -- devoting an episode of In Search of to the triangle. And then, for some reason I didn't hear about it anymore. So it was fun to watch a movie about the triangle. And it was extra fun that this movie portrayed it as some kind of supernatural phenomenon -- without being clear as to the exact nature of the phenomenon.

In this film, the main characters are the Marvin family, who have chartered the boat. Early on, they find a child's doll floating in the ocean. They let Diana, the youngest passenger, have the doll, and she seems to become possessed by it -- predicating (and in some cases causing) the deaths of her shipmates. The best -- and creepiest -- part of this is the fact that, late in the movie, the doll takes on actual human appearances. That whole development is probably the best aspect of the movie. In a way, the film seemed like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone. Sadly, though, we're talking about Twilight Zone from the 1980's instead of from the 1960's. The ambiguous ending, is one of the high points of the film, making it very interesting and giving the audience something to talk about.

But the problem is that it takes too long to get there. They could have easily cut a half hour out of this film without sacrificing anything. There's a whole sequence near the beginning showing World War II era airplanes getting lost in the triangle. It really had nothing to do with the plot except that one of the early reported incidents in the triangle involved planes such as those. And there were a bunch of other things that were thrown in for no obvious plot purpose.

Ratings
Me: 5.5
Bob-O: 8.5
Dave: 9
Ethan: 8.5
Kursat: 6