Movie of the Week: Satan’s Triangle

A ship in the Bermuda Triangle is in trouble and sends out a distress call. The U.S. Coast Guard responds with Lt. Commander Pagnolini (Michael Conrad) and his winchman Lt. J. Haig (Doug McClure) arriving to save the day, but Haig gets stranded on the non-operable schooner with the only survivor, Eva (Kim Novak), the rest of the crew and passengers are gone or dead.  Haig convinces Eva that while they wait for the Coast Guard to return after dawn, she should tell him the whole story of what happened on the ship.  Eva complies and tells a tale of a fishing trip gone wrong when they find a priest a drift on a piece of a crashed airplane.  As soon as Father Peter Martin (Alejandro Rey) comes on board, the weather turns rough with strange clouds and lightning and everyone’s life is put in peril. Will Haig and Eva survive until morning or is there something more sinister going on in Satan’s Triangle?  Watch and find out!

This was a fun little supernatural story cleverly told and executed with a very limited budget.  The film originally aired on ABC on January 14^th, 1975. The plot is interesting with some twists and turns.  The pacing is good, and the movie has a good rhythm.  Much of the film takes place on the Schooner or the Coast Guard helicopters giving the film an almost claustrophobic vibe. The production value is pretty low, with very little special effects, the “weird” lighting was accomplished by flashing to negative images and several of the scenes used stock footage of fishing and Coast Guard maneuvers, but this was commonplace for the movies of the 1970s and did not detract from the overall enjoyment of the film.  The production, of course, has a surprise ending with some good twists and turns.

The real fun of the movie comes in the performances.  Doug McClure does a great job as the Coast Guard Lieutenant who is a professed ladies’ man and becomes enthralled by the wiles of Kim Novak’s Eva.  He is confident and a bit cocky which is exactly what the character needed to advance the story, and McClure does this well.  Kim is the quintessential seductress and being both sexy and vulnerable but with an inner strength and mystery.  Michael Conrad as the stoic and strait laced Pagnolini whose character is the faith based religious character and possibly meant to be the moral anchor of the film.  And Alejandro Rey (The Flying Nun) as the mysterious priest whose faith is put to the test has just enough charm and charisma to pull off the part.  Overall, I enjoyed the movie, it wasn’t too heavy and didn’t try to be anything more than a 1970s television mystery horror film.

Satan’s Triangle is available on DVD and can also be viewed on You Tube.