Starship Invasions (1977)
UFO Invasion
Christopher Lee called this his worst film. Contrarily it is a ridiculously entertaining effort about a war between telepathic aliens in UFOs from beneath the Bermuda Triangle.
The Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle is an area that supposedly covers around a million square mile area with its vertices at Miami, Puerto Rico and Bermuda. The term first originated in a newspaper article in 1950, which speculated about the large number of ships and aircraft that have disappeared in the area. The idea was soon taken up by fringe science theorists who have offered all manner of explanations for the disappearances that have included everything from UFOs, timewarps and aliens to technology leftover from Atlantis and more natural explanations like weather and human error.
The idea of the Bermuda Triangle disappears under sceptical examination. For one, nobody is certain of the exact area, which has often been expanded anywhere between a half and 1.5 million square miles by differing authors in order to include incidents within its area. Sceptics, the US Coast Guard and marine experts have conducted examinations – showing that some of the claims made of ships that vanished in mysterious circumstances have been wildly distorted – and have demonstrated that statistically no more vessels sink or disappear in the Bermuda Triangle that would be uncommon for any similar area in the world. This does not appear to have stopped the popularity of the myth.
In genre cinema, The Bermuda Triangle is a place where “strange things happen.” It can be the base for alien invaders, can house time portals and sunken cities, is a place from where people return from changed, or be transported through time or from other places.
The Bermuda Triangle (1978)
Lost in The Bermuda Triangle
A film made to tap the 1970s fascination with the so-called Bermuda Triangle mystery with a name cast lost at sea on a ship as mysterious happenings start to occur
The Bermuda Triangle (1979)
Bermuda Triangle and Pseudo-Science Documentary
A documentary that purports to examine the mystery of the so-called Bermuda Triangle but soon dives off into an hilarious series of claims involving UFOs, Atlantis, time warps and The Philadelphia Experiment
The Island (1980)
Lost Society of Pirate Descendants
Novelist Peter Benchley’s name was huge as a result of Jaws. One of the less successful Benchley adaptations about the discovery of a lost society of pirate descendants who prey on shipping in the Bermuda Triangle
The Dark Side of the Moon (1990)
The Devil in Outer Space
Conceptually ridiculous film where a spaceship crew in lunar orbit come across a space shuttle that disappeared through the Bermuda Triangle and contains a parasitic organism that is The Devil
The Addams Family (1991)
Kinky Perverse Family
The big screen version of the 1960s tv series and Charles Addams’ cartoons is a highly enjoyable Hollywood Halloween Party, a chance for name actors to put on costume and ape life with a ghoulish, mildly perverse, moderately subversive spin
Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)
Vampire Comedy
An odd mismatch of talent where Wes Craven directs Eddie Murphy as a vampire who arrives in present-day New York. Craven and Murphy seem to drown either;s distinctive voices out
Time Under Fire (1997)
Time Travel/Action
Unimaginative time travel/action film that plays out like
The Triangle (2005)
Solving the Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle
An impressive line-up of genre names came together for this big event mini-series that sets out to offer a conclusive explanation for the Bermuda Triangle in a plot that juggles an entertaining stew of wild ideas involving timewarps, alternate timelines and government cover-ups
Gulliver’s Travels (2010)
Land of Little People
Jonathan Swift’s classic tale of a man in a land of miniature people is turned into a comedy vehicle for Jack Black and outfitted with a series of vulgar and pop culture gags
The Mysterious Island (2012)
Desert Island Survival/Time Warp
About the ninth film version of Jules Verne’s desert island survival story. This doesn’t add the giant animals/insects other versions do, although we still get a number of wild sf elements the original book never had. Problem though is that the film never adds enough to make proceedings very interesting
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013)
Greek Myth in the Present Day
This sequel is marginally better than the first film (largely due to Chris Columbus no longer being in the director’s chair), being more dramatically engaged and with effects that feel less like random eye candy. That still doesn’t disguise the fact that the Percy Jackson series is no more than a lightweight and forgettable Harry Potter knockoff
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018)
Animation/Famous Monsters Comedy
I’m not a fan of the Hotel Transylvania films and their reduction of the Famous Monsters to slapstick yocks. This is exactly the same as the preceding films, no better, no worse and with only minute plotting difference
Devil’s Triangle (2021)
Adventures in Atlantis
An adventure potboiler from The Asylum about the crew of a plane who pass through the Bermuda Triangle to end up in Atlantis just as the Atlanteans prepare to declare war on the surface world