Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

This famous movie holds up well, mainly due to the hot pair, Nick Nolte and Jaqueline Bisset, but the suspense is great too.

The DVD in widescreen is great, but I hope the director's cut with the extra 53 minutes surfaces (a bad pun, excuse me) some day, I missed it when it was on TV and from what I heard it helps make better sense of some of the plot. The underwater photography is some of the best ever filmed (courtesy of Al Giddings)and the stars do all of the diving.

The storyline is one of the great "what ifs" of history, two wrecks from different centuries end up one on top of the other. If your a history buff (as I am) you'll realize that with the number of ships that have wrecked in Bermudan waters over 500 years it's not that far fetched a plot.

The cast is great, Shaw at his best as the reluctant anti-hero, Bisset and Nolte at their most nubile and athletic, Gossett doing a great turn as the drug hungry villain, plus the always great Eli Wallach. Then there is the real star of the movie, the islands of Bermuda and the water that surrounds them.

This is one of the few movies made in which the movie is superior to the book. I greatly enjoyed the book, it goes much deeper into Romer Treece's (Shaw) background and why he is so anti-drug, but the movie is even better. A few of the characters (in particular, the one played by Wallach) are changed and the ending is changed, in my mind far better in the movie then the book.

If nothing else this movie introduced me to what is still my favorite alcoholic beverage........Goslings Black Seal Rum and Treece (Shaw) has two of the best lines ever about its consumption. When asked about drinking before diving he responds....."Rum's not drinkin', rum's survivin'" and when asked what he does when its too foggy to get the boat out he responds........"I stay home and drink rum".

I highly recommend this DVD and it is best enjoyed with a Gosling Black Seal.....neat of course!