You have to hand it to Rene Cardona Jr.--maybe his films aren't very good, but he was always able to make them the way he wanted to in Mexico and successfully distribute them internationally (as opposed to today where most Mexican filmmakers manage maybe one acclaimed art film before they're swallowed whole by the Hollywood whale). This film seeks to exploit all the publicity surrounding the Bermuda Triangle at the time. A deep sea diver (John Huston)and his much younger wife and family sail into the Bermuda Triangle to explore some undersea ruins. Along for the ride is his bickering half-brother and sister-in-law and a superstitious crew of Mexican sailors. Strange things begin to happen. They find a creepy doll floating in the sea and give it to the youngest daughter who feeds it raw meat (which, hilariously, no one remarks on)and become possessed by it, accurately predicting the demise of various cast members. There are freak storms, bizarre accidents, and perhaps most creepy they keep hearing distress calls from the ships and planes that have disappeared over the years, including even their own transmissions.
This movie is pretty effective and has a surprising amount of character development. The cast is Cardona's usual mixture of washed-up Americans (Huston), Mexican regulars (Hugo Stiglitz and Andres Garcia) and a little delectable bikini-filler imported from Europe (Gloria Guida). Since this was marketed as a low-budget disaster movie, it is fairly family-friendly (although it's probably too violent and scary for little kids), so don't expect the usual sex and nudity from the director of "Tintorera"--in fact, this is the only movie I've seen with Gloria Guida where she does NOT take her clothes off (she spends most of the movie in bed, literally, after a diving accidentally). It is a testament to the effectiveness of this movie though that I really didn't mind. The only real negative here is the atrocious dubbing: the dubbed dialogue of the black cook, in particular, would be offensive if it wasn't so ridiculous--he comes off like a throw-back to Step'n Fetchit.
Still I would definitely recommend this. Even if it's not much of a compliment, this is definitely Rene Cardona's Jr.'s best movie.
