Tags:
Film: Bermuda Island
Year: 2023
Director: Adam Werth
Writer: Robert Thompson
Starring: John Wells, Sarah French and Victor V Gelsomino
Review:
This is a movie that I saw thanks to Sonny Mahal. He helped come up with the story and is a producer on this one. He sent over a screener and since I enjoy getting the word out about independent cinema, I agreed to watch and review. Seeing the title intrigued. The Bermuda Triangle fascinated me growing up so I wanted to see what we did here.
Synopsis: passengers on their way to a tropical paradise crash at sea and find themselves on a deserted island. Desperate to survive the elements and infighting between the survivors, they find that the island has more in store for them than they could ever imagine.
We start this off with a sting operation. The goal is to catch Diego Montalban (Noel Gugliemi). He is a high up criminal and the deal involves guns. It ends in a shoot-out, but Diego is taken into custody. The agent in charge is Victor Sweden (Wesley Cannon). He is taken to the airport where they’re sending him to somewhere in the Caribbean. This is something that confused me if I’m honest.
The movie then shifts to the airport. It is there that we meet the rest of the cast. We get a lot of characters so I’ll just introduce some of the more important ones. There is Carolyn (Sarah French) with a group of her friends. There is Damon (Victor V Gelsomino) who is going with his brother. There is also Peggy (Sheri Davis) who is memory serves is a ‘Karen’. She is upset as the flight is delayed. There is bad weather so they’re making sure that it won’t affect them. She is irate since when she looks outside, it is clear. Jonas (Tom Sizemore) works for the airline. Agent Sweden and a couple other agents commandeer first class for Diego.
The flight then takes off. Things get a bit bumpy. This includes Diego getting free and shoot-out occurring. There are bigger issues though. A storm comes out of nowhere. The weather report has it being clear, but this freak storm makes the flight rough. So much so that they crash.
Survivors make it to the island and try to do what they can to get their bearings. There is something horrible here and it is hunting them. They meet Bruce (John Wells) who has been living on this island for some time. He crashed here. Damon and Carolyn learn that in the grand scheme of time, he’s been here so long that it isn’t possible. Can the survivors get to the bottom of what happened and how they can get rescued before it is too late?
That is where I’m going to leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Now coming into this when we get our set up, I realized that they have a bunch of characters for cannon fodder. I’ll come back to this shortly. Where I want to start is with a positive. I like the basic concept that we get here. Having the plane crash due to a freak storm by the Bermuda triangle is great. It takes me back as I said to things I feared as a child and the mystery of that area. There is a reveal while there that was also good, but I’m not going to spoil what it is. What I will say is one that ticks boxes for me when done right. It also could explain things as well.
To stick with another positive, I love the idea of Bruce being trapped on this island and knowing the score. He tries to help these new survivors. We learn that he was in the military so that is part of it. I will give something to you that could be considered a spoiler. There are these humanoid creatures on the island. They attack at night. I love this idea. This is going to take me to a negative though, I want them to flesh out a bit more with them. Now I get part of this is that the characters don’t know so we can’t get it explained. Learning more of the history of these entities has my attention more than what we got. This instead focuses more on the bickering between the survivors in an almost ‘Lord of the Flies’ way. The acting isn’t strong enough and the writing doesn’t capture enough for me to be on board. Our creatures are much better looking and interesting.
Since I’ve brought them up, I’ll go to the filmmaking and start with the effects. The look of the monsters is great. I’d guess that they were done practical. Going along with this, the blood and gore was also good. That seemed to be done without computers as well. I do have to say that we get some CGI that doesn’t look great. It doesn’t ruin things for me since it is a smaller part. Other than that, I’d say that the cinematography was fine. I love the setting of stranding our group on a deserted island. The soundtrack also works for what was needed without standing out.
Then the last thing to go into would be with the acting. Wells was fine as Bruce. There is a reveal to his character that I enjoyed. We also get another, but I’ll be honest, when that happened I already checked out. French and Gelsomino are solid as our two leads. I’d say the rest of the group stranded are as well. Cannon does well at being this jerk FBI agent. The performance of the creatures were solid as well. Cameos by Sizemore and Gugliemi are here to pull in viewers. Can’t fault the filmmaking team for that. The acting is amateur for the most part. I do need to say that, but it also fits the movie in my opinion.
In conclusion, I think there are good things here. We get the isolated location and elements to the story that I’m fan of. I even like the survivors being hunted by these creatures. The practical effects we get are good. The CGI isn’t great, but it also doesn’t rely on it either. Acting is fine. No one is going to win awards here, but this is also a lower budget movie. I just think there are things this focuses on that aren’t as interesting so it lost me later into this. If you’re a fan of independent, low budget cinema, I think you’ll enjoy this enough.
My Rating: 6 out of 10