A Revisit: The Bermuda Depths (1978)

I wasn’t quite sure how to classify this ramble, be it torn between a ‘Revisit’ or just my standard kneejerkreaction review, and this was due to a specific, borderline-traumatizing image burned into my then toddler-aged mind (when I must’ve seen it), that being the eerie fate of a key character at the flippers of a giant sea beasty of indeterminate purpose or even identity (more on that later).

I had to imagine that Yes, at some point in my wee single digits, I’d caught at least a chunk of this late 70’s TV movie somewhere in my travels, mostly likely at one of my family’s giant gatherings, on some hideous wood-panelled television that weighed the same as a small car, as a distraction for us pesky young uns while the parental units got silly on cheap booze, questionable weed and too much BBQ (though really, is there such a thing?).

The bottom line is this – somewhere back through the mists of time (probably bout four decades, actually), I MUST’VE seen The Bermuda Depths, given that one specific memory / trauma I’ve carried, and a weird sense I’d always had about it (don’t ask). Therefore…it only seemed right to go with Revisit, as you, Dear Reader, can clearly see above.

The Bermuda Depths was the first live-action feature-length attempt for the blooming television market of the late 1970’s, by the predominantly animation-focused studio Rankin/Bass Productions, in conjunction with Tsuburaya Productions in Japan, and it’s an odd one. Thankfully, that aspect tends to work for this unfocused but somehow engaging science fiction / fantasy / ghost story hybrid that never fully finds its haunted footing, but somehow keeps you morbidly watching the attempt.

At least, all these years later, that’s my take on it.

I fully admit that my Nostalgia Lenses may be thick with this one, given the spot it seems to hold in my earliest movie nerd memories.

The story opens with a dreamy sequence of two cute, badly-acting little kids; a dim-looking boy improbably named ‘Magnus’ and a little girl named ‘Jennie’, running around on a sandy beach somewhere in Bermuda. They find a large mysterious egg washed ashore and watch as it eventually hatches into a baby sea turtle. This strange turtle grows quickly and then one day, for some reason, ‘Jennie’ grabs onto the shell and hitches a ride toward open water. Why? Who knows.  ’Magnus’ watches as both turtle and girl vanish beneath the waves, never to surface. Not long after this apparent drowning, ‘Magnus’s dumbass scientist dad gets himself un-alived by an aggressive PoV shot in his secret ocean-side lair, literally eaten in your typical bloodless, offscreen TV Movie fashion, just before something big demolishes a bunch of the local real estate, which comes crumbling down in all it’s ‘obviously a model’ glory. Shitty day for that kid. Years later, a now adult ‘Magnus’ (Leigh McCloskey) returns to Bermuda to dig into what really happened to the old man. Upon arrival, he looks up old friend, marine biologist ‘Eric’ (Carl Weathers) and a former coworker of his father’s, the eccentric ‘Paulis’ (Burl Ives). The intrepid trio opts to team up to hunt down the oversized cryptozoological critter believed to roam the waters of the…drum roll, please…Bermuda Triangle!

Betcha didn’t see THAT coming.

Didja.

As the Three Stooges chase something big enough to tear up vast submerged sections of thick netting on the open water (does that sound like a certain fish-based blockbuster released just three years earlier?), ‘Magnus’ begins encountering a beautiful, mysterious woman, who immediately introduces herself as ‘Jennie Haniver’ (Connie Sellecca) back on shore, incidentally the same name as the little girl went for a dip with the sea-life and never came back. As these two stories hurtle toward each other, there’s drama, suspense and a good healthy dose of unintentional comedy!

For whatever reason, *cough*…mid-life…*cough*crisis*cough*, I’ve been hunting down things from way back when, to tangibly revisit those more innocent memories from those more innocent times, and being that the miracle of streaming media in this age of high technology and low-IQs is as wide-spread as it is, it should’ve been easy to dig up. Right? Nope. Of the four streaming services the wife and I use, I couldn’t find this wacky lil gem anywhere. So once again the siren song of online shopping called and I answered, via EBay Canada**(off-the-cuff rant below review), of course.

Where was I…oh right…

My DVD copy of The Bermuda Depths arrived and I was low-key excited to finally get to check it out again, literally all these decades later. Whether the flick sucked or not was largely irrelevant, as already the experience of FINALLY having ready access to this strange little trip way down memory lane was already a ‘win’.

So, as I had duly scheduled with myself, I roused on a rainy and dark Saturday morning (I love my 6AM ‘matinees’), left my lady and the fur-baby girls slumbering and twitching away, brewed up a pot of strong coffee, and snuck in a quick ‘wake n bake’ microdose before snuggling in for what was undoubtedly to be an amusing trip to late 70’s made-for-TV Bermuda.

The thumb hit Play and the pen hit paper.

Scribbles were again unleashed…

-Back when models still looked like models. 1977 was a revolutionary year for special effects in movies, with both Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind blowing people’s socks off on the Big Screen. The ways that models were shot and shown was changed forever. Unfortunately, movies with this kind of budget and exposure were doomed to be relegated to the toy boat-in-the-tub-in-slow motion variety of not-so-special effects and it’s evident right off the bat with this one.

-The fedora is a choice. So, adult ‘Magnus’ is first shown passed out on the sand, taking in the sun at the foot of a sea-side cliff. He’s rocking the flimsy, uncomfortably high and ridiculous 1970’s shorts and a worn, beach-bum top. All good for where he is, no judgement there. However, the near Indiana Jones-style fedora plunked over his visage stands out. Not totally sure if that was supposed to hint at something in his past or personality but it just doesn’t vibe somehow.

-Location shooting goes a long way. This is a definite plus for this silly flick, as Bermuda (which I’ve never seen, nor will ever see) looks beautiful on film and many times, for many shots, this was wisely capitalized upon. However, at the risk of being That Guy, I do also have to point that the impressive wide-open, on-location cinematography renders the chuckle-worthy / cringe-inducing effects all the more jarring when they spring up.

-Did Carl Weathers ever actually age? Dude kept himself in great shape over the span of his acting career, going back to his pre-Hollywood days in professional sports and I swear he kept himself together for a good long while. One day, I swear I’ll finally check out his franchise non-starter, 1988’s Action Jackson. Apparently, it’s awesomely bad. Some day…some day.

-Pure exposition, as expected. Virtually ALL dialogue, and that’s no exaggeration. The only time characters flap their gums here is to clumsily explain plot-propelling shit, never for character development or depth. I guess TV Movie audiences of the 70’s were just morons who needed to be led by the nose through even the most simple of plots.

-Is that a ravishing young Angela Bassett?! It’s not, but Julie Woodson is just as striking, possibly even more so, as ‘Eric’s emotionally-taxed wife ‘Doshan’.

-Hilarious mispronunciation. Coelacanth. Yea, Weathers’ alleged ‘marine biologist’ character confidently butchers the pronunciation of the prehistoric dinosaur fish thought extinct till one was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938. It’s See-la-canth, NOT Cola-canth. C’mon, Weathers, get your shit together, man!

-‘Magnus’ comes off like a disinterested stoner. Close your mouth! Not sure if it was how ‘Magnus’ was (or wasn’t) written or if actor Leigh McCloskey was simply highly limited and this wet rag of a performance was the result. One small / big lesson my lovely mother once imparted upon me was ‘if you don’t want people to think you’re dumb, start by closing your mouth when you’re not using it.’ Homeboy ‘Magnus’ here could’ve benefited from that woman’s sage-like advice and prevented himself from coming off like a surfer moron who’s skull had been driven into the bottom one too many times.

–Um…why? Random chick swims by, you leap in? Creep.  I think we’re supposed to assume there’s some weird, deep supernatural connection between ‘Magnus’ and ‘Jennie’, but there’s a scene where he spots, from a vantage point where he could NOT tell who was swimming past, a woman in the water. With no hesitation, it MUST be the ‘is she real / is she not’ ‘Jennie’, and off he goes, diving on in with no hesitation, trying to chase her into the murky depths. Lucky for him it WAS who he thought…but, c’mon.

-Backward waves are wackbard. This was just funny. There’s a quick establishing shot zooming in on beach activity, only it doesn’t take a detective to notice that the waves, that dominate a notable chunk of the shot, are all rolling gracefully back out to sea. Needed a zoom-in, only had a zoom-out, apparently. Every frame filled with direction-specific movement, you say? “Fuck it! They won’t notice, these 1970’s TV Movie audience morons of ours!” Well, that’s just more evidence that 1970’s TV audiences were probably trusted to be dumb enough to not notice, and that was probably the case. But not me, motherfuckers! Gotcha!

-The name doesn’t prompt any reaction? So, for some reason, the lingering mystery of the disappearance of his little childhood crush doesn’t prompt any kind of profound emotional reaction when she almost offhandedly tells her name. I don’t care if it’s been years, something that scarring would stick with you.

–Constant music a lil distracting. There always seems to be a low obo-themed tune running under nearly every ‘breather’ scene, lending the illusion of drama when there isn’t, or doesn’t need to be, any. The mysterious tone they were clearly going for would’ve been better served via some liberal doses of heightened ‘location’ sounds and quiet.

–Every time someone night swims, the sun comes out when they submerge. More editing hilariousness. First off, the ‘day-for-night’ shots barely qualified, with a mere light blue filter laid over the scenes. But then characters leap into the ocean and when we join them, it’s strangely full-on daylight under there! But then again, this is the old Devil’s Triangle, so what do I know.

-1970’s shorts are a travesty! I’m all for styles cycling around through the decades but damn, could the super-short, nut-revealing Magnum PI shorts of this time period just fucking stay there?! Please!

–And just like that…they’re hanging out. No questions. Character interactions, like the overall narrative, are choppy and as already noted, questions are not posed and emotions are not expressed when these supposed sea-crossed lovers are just suddenly back in each others lives. Tones in conversations also have a funny habit of switching around from cut to cut, like maybe the editors weren’t entirely confident cutting live action and cut it with a clumsy ‘hammer’ approach instead of a strategic ‘scalpel’.

-Dare I say she looks like Paris Hilton? This one makes me feel odd. As a (barely) human being, I despise EVERYTHING that Paris “That’s Hot” Hilton is and stands for…but I have to admit that she’s not awful on the eyes. Here, Connie Sellecca holds something of that particular allure, from certain angles and in certain lighting. No complaints.

–Well, things are moving suspiciously fast. Sudden physical passion awkwardly ensues.

–Weathers was jacked! As already noted, that son-of-a-bitch was a beast, having gotten a healthy start in professional sports for a good spell and clearly continuing the tough training into his blossoming (at the time) acting career, and then throughout. Here, the awful shorts and cringey crop tops show off a sculpted physique as though carved from obsidian. Legitimately impressive.

-Wow. Toy boat inserts. Yep, more of this terrifically awful stuff. The footage looks exactly like what it is, which is a small model boat in a small body of standing water, with water and wave effects that instantly reveal their true size as they buffet the lazy weightless model around in lighting that in no way matches the on-location footage coming both before and after each shot.

-It’s a friggin turtle. Why the whale song? So yeah, the primary antagonist is the now-grown version of the sea turtle that apparently pulled ‘Jennie’ into the depths all those years ago, and it’s somehow a demi-god / demon whose puppet eyes flash menacingly from time to time when it’s not patrolling…The Bermuda Depths! Sorry, I had to. But we’re treated to several shots of this beast (that I’m not sure is ever even named onscreen) as it cruises along, both above and below the waves…and every fucking time, it’s whale song we hear! I love whale song, I think it’s absolutely fascinating and hypnotic, and I think most people know it when they hear it. Even in 1978, which is why I found it slightly amusing and slightly grating that EVERYTIME the damn supernatural turtle thing was on screen – whale song. Hell, they even acknowledge it, referring to it like it’s “like a woman crying.” Nope, just huge majestic mammals communicating in the depths. But here? Sure, fine…massive demon turtle it is.

-“Warm me.” Gee, what could she mean by THAT?! For starters, it seems as though she has the body temperature of your average zombie (which would prompt a question or two, I would think), but the way she utters those words, with what looked like an oddly hot mix of lust and sorrow, seemed pretty obvious about what she was looking for. So, I can only assume that ‘Magnus’ fucked the popsicle-temperature’d, maybe-a-ghost ‘Jennie’, thus warming her up as per her sultry request. Or maybe I’m just a dirty bastard seeing smut where there isn’t any. *shrugs*

-Ha! Nice crop top, Weathers! I already alluded to this one but wow…it’s only due to the incredibly chiselled torso on display that your mind nearly overlooks one of the gayest-without-trying articles of clothing in the history of clothing itself. Nearly.

-The tragic downfall begins. Weathers, seemingly out of nowhere, suddenly goes all ‘Captain Ahab’, to the point that the mad, vengeful captain of Moby Dick is pointedly and deliberately name-dropped as a direct accusation as a rift in the trio quickly forms. ‘Eric’ apparently gets dosed with Demon Turtle Fever and is now dedicated to the hunt, damn the consequences! Damn them! He WILL be victorious!

-NOT a recoilless rifle. That’s a bazooka, genius. As he carries his ultimate weapon to his boat, ‘Eric’ is asked “Is that a bazooka?”, to which he responds with “No, it’s a recoilless rifle.” This is funny, since No, it was NOT a recoilless rifle, which is a low and long-barreled, tripod mounted anti-armour weapon. What the prop department HAD given Weathers WAS, in fact, the exaggerated body of a WW2 bazooka, with a Looney Tunes-looking harpoon and wire set-up slapped on.

–Some honestly eerie underwater shots. I give credit where credit is due, and occasionally some really nice and genuinely eerie underwater shots stumble onto the stage. The sequence that prompted this scrawl was a long shot of Weathers slowly swimming down to a long length of drift-netting (boo!) that hung in the deepening murk and given that there was also supposed to be a massive sea monster in the neighborhood, lurking just beyond sight. Unfortunately, one sad reality about The Bermuda Depths was what seemed to be a defaulted 4:3, TV-friendly picture format so any shots deserving of a Wide Screen presentation were S.o.L.

–The ‘day-for-night’ shots are sloppy as hell. As previously noted, it looked like shit. It’s highly unusual for day-for-night shots to be done convincingly, but these ones were particularly bad.

–Weathers is getting sloshed! Endless Bud. Doesn’t offer one. The entire lead-up to the final confrontation with this giant, seemingly directionless turtle creature sees ‘Eric’ just tossing back the Budweisers (those 70’s cans were adorable!) as they puddle around on the open water and not once…NOT ONCE, I tell you!…did that greedy son-of-a-bitch offer one to poor, dim-witted ‘Magnus’. Perhaps, that explains certain ‘not good for living’ events that soon transpire. Looking at YOU, Weathers!

However, on reflection, perhaps ‘Eric’ was doing ‘Magnus’ a solid, denying him the chance to sully his person with Budweiser; an absolute shit beer made even worse by virtue of being American.

-Magnus always looks like he’s on the verge of crying. It’s true. He does.

-Wait…where’d the spear go? Ah, ok. So, at one point after they’ve deployed their net, something alive and thrashing around gets caught up in it. Weathers, with questionable wisdom, doggy paddles down to theoretically scare off whatever it might be. Never mind the massive, mysterious demi-god turtle critter lurking out the in the darkness that’s maybe stalking you…but then again, maybe not. Truthfully, this oddball supernatural beast’s motivations for anything are barely touched in this ‘narrative’. ANYWAY, as he’s searching, he sees what appears to be a woman in the net…so naturally he shoots at her with his nifty little spear pistol, as one does. Apparently, she vanishes, but shortly after we get a shot of ‘Jennie’ swimming below the surface, spear in her side with a notable cloud of blood trailing. Later, this strange chick pops back up like nothing’s nothin, to the point where I thought I’d chock it up to yet more bad editing. However, at one point, the camera tilts down and we see a barely-there wound to her side. She seems largely fine…or as fine as some haunted maybe-reincarnated sea ghost sometimes real-sometimes not chick can be.

-Helicopter attack. Hilarious. More models in bathtubs. So good. I literally LOL’d. Incidentally, Jaws 2 came out the same year as this and features a not-perfect but far better take on the ‘vicious sea monster destroys helicopter’ concept.

-Model work definitely the weak link. I suspect you’re picking up on a certain theme by now, yes?

-And there IT is. RIP. And by ‘IT’ I mean the image that was seared into my tender young mind for 40 years of *SPOILERS* – Carl Weathers drowning, caught up, Ahab-style, in his own sea monster-catching gear that’s lodged in our massive, whale-singing sea turtle as it passes over us, Star Destroyer-like, the tiny puppet of “Eric’ trailing behind as he’s pulled into the murky Bermuda Depths, victim of his own tragic ambitions.

 And since we did just recently lose Mr. Carl Weathers to the Greater Cosmos…RIP, sir. You and ‘Eric’ both.

-How many endings do we need?! No bullshit, I counted four different times where they could’ve rolled credits but nope, yet another non-relevant plot point to wrap up.

-What a weird movie. And it is.

It really is a weird movie. Not an awful one, especially as live-action, feature-length debuts go, but definitely an oddity. It DOES have a certain eerie, dream-like undercurrent, even through the cringey cheese and the laughable model work, but the overall project, and the story they attempted, had a certain ambition to it. Too bad the ‘mechanics’ behind the scenes lacked the overall focus and finesse needed to effectively pull the viewer all the way in. Working in its favor are some genuinely beautiful locations, both on and off the water, some very nice underwater cinematography and an effective sense of haunted melancholy. I’m still not totally sure how, given the qualitative totality of The Bermuda Depths and my own admitted ‘pickiness’ when it comes to film quality, but I had a fun time revisiting this blast from the past, warts and all. I’m keenly aware that the Nostalgia Glasses are in full effect this time around but as a curiosity from the time period, I think I could recommend this flick.

PSA – Smoke some good weed before hand. It goes a long way with this one.

-I endorse this message.

Rant incoming…

**CANADA ONLY AND ALWAYS, cuz…FUCK YOU, MAGA USA, you fucking evil, ignorant, lying, cheating pieces of half-witted sycophantic shit!

Sweeties, you’ve simply proven to be far too dangerously hateful and lacking in intellectual curiosity and compassion to co-exist with…well…anyone and everyone else, it seems. Not to mention easily duped.

Please…do the right thing…and actually do it. You’ll figure it out. And history WILL remember the choices you make and the actions you take.

For the sake of EVERYONE and EVERYTHING.”

–steps off soapbox, as the Canadian flag snaps proudly in the cool Northern breeze.