“Within the last
thirty years just off the east coast of the United States, more than a thousand
men, women and children have vanished from the face of the Earth. No one knows
how or why. This is one explanation.”
-Title Card, Satan’s Triangle (1975).
A
coast guard rescue copter out of Miami flies to the dead center of the Devil’s
Triangle in response to a distress call from a yacht, the Requite. Aboard the
copter are pilots Lt. J. Haig (Doug McClure) and Pagnolini (Michael Conrad).
They
soon find the yacht adrift in the Triangle, with the corpse of a Catholic
priest, Father Martin (Alejandro Rey) swinging from the main mast. When the helicopter begins to develop engine
problems, Haig decides to board the ship, and Pagnolini returns to port for
repairs..
Upon
exploring the dark vessel, Haig discovers more oddities. In one room, a corpse
seems to be levitating in mid-air, his face frozen in terror.
The
only survivor on the yacht is lovely Eva (Kim Novak), a prostitute who tells
Haig her strange story. She reports that the yacht encountered Father Martin,
adrift and alone. Once the priest came
aboard, however, the crew abandoned ship, leaving only the captain (Ed Lauter)
and the passengers.
Then,
one at a time, the passengers -- including the man that Eva was with -- began
to die horribly, and some in apparently supernatural fashion.
Haig
is a non-believer, however, and refuses to believe that the Devil is at work in
these waters, even though Eva warns that “there
is no way off this damn boat.”
Haig
is able to convince her that there is no supernatural intervention by providing
logical explanations for all the deaths, even the one involving a levitation
(the man is speared on a sword fish…).
Eva
acquiesces, and the couple make love.
Soon,
Pagnolini returns to rescue the survivors. But aboard the helicopter, J. Haig
experiences his first face-to-face encounter with the Devil…
Satan’s
Triangle (1975)
is another one of those weird and wonderful made-for-TV movies of the 1970’s
that is scarier than it has any right to be.
Satan’s
Triangle is
scary beyond the meager resources that went into its making. It is scary
despite the network restrictions on violence limiting filmmakers working in those years. It remains
scary, even though audiences realize the TV-movie is also, oddly, hokey.
When
I study the made-for-TV film today, I assess that it works so well, in part,
because of the film techniques it utilizes.
Satan’s Triangle is in no way, shape
or form a found-footage film, but nonetheless there is an almost documentary
feeling to the film’s early scenes. The camera is perched in control rooms, in
cockpits, and it captures all the action without much by way of dialogue or
overly theatrical acting. In these early sections, artificiality is reduced.
Satan's Triangle, at first, feels more like a movie documenting the Coast Guard and a rescue mission than it does a
movie about the devil. When Haig takes a rescue basket (via
winch) to the deck of the stranded yacht, the camera captures it all in one
long take, and water even splashes on the lens several times. The characters don’t comment much, or talk
unnecessarily, and so we are left to assess the images alone for their
verisimilitude.
These
moments hold up to scrutiny.
On
the soundtrack, meanwhile is a weird, ubiquitous howling sound. Is it just the
wind? Or is it…Satan?
The
pseudo-documentary feel by director Sutton Roley changes once Haig is inside the ship;
in the belly of the beast, as it were. The movie suddenly takes on a more overt (and theatrical) “haunted
house” feel with dim-lighting, strange noises and odd occurrences. The appearance
of the levitating body, for example, is quite shocking.
There’s
one amazing shot here in which the (levitating) face of the deceased man -- face
frozen in a rictus of terror -- is perched in the foreground, and Haig and Eva are in
the background. It’s a super-imposition of terror, and evil, over normality.
The
movie also attempts to craft a legitimate theme, arguing rationality vs.
irrationality. The script ultimately comes to explain every “supernatural”
event as a factor of the natural world. The blow-back from firing a flare gun
is what knocked Father Martin from the mast, and killed him. The “levitating” man is just speared on a
fish, suspended by the sword. Even the crew disappearances are explained (via speculative
flashbacks.)
In
short, Satan’s Triangle goes to great pains to establish that the
world is not an irrational, supernatural one.
It may even convince you.
Until
the bottom falls out.
Until the movie
collapses -- or perhaps ascends -- into a final scene of bizarre, utter madness.
Haig finds that he has returned to the helicopter not with Eva but with the Devil. Eva's body has been discovered on the ship with
the rescuers. Instead, the pilot has brought the devil to the helicopter, in the form
of Father Martin.
The
Devil then attacks, and events descend deeper into chaos. This denouement features a real dream-like,
or more appropriately, nightmare-like quality.
Again, this third act functions as a very strong contrast to the almost-documentary feel of
the movie’s start, and is thus doubly effective.
There
are no real special effects to speak of in the finale, except an exceptionally
nice stunt fall, as Haig is driven by Satan from the copter to the ocean far
below. Instead of effects, the movie relies on Conrad’s ability to convey terror, and Rey’s expressive capacity to depict bug-eyed evil.
It
all works perfectly.
I
have peers, particularly a brother-in-law, who saw this film on ABC on January
14, 1975, and swear, to this day, that Satan’s Triangle is the most
terrifying movie they’ve ever seen. Having not seen it as an impressionable
child, I don’t know that I would make exactly the same claim.
Instead,
I’ll just say that Satan’s Triangle, a low-budget, 74 minute made-for-TV movie, is
eerily effective, and surprisingly well-made. The film techniques save the day or at least this is "one explanation," for the movie's cult-status.
John, excellent review of Satan’s Triangle(1975). Like your brother-in-law, as a young boy, I saw this on ABC on January 14, 1975 too. It was extremely scary to me back then and is yet another '70s telefilm gem. Amazing what an interesting script and good director with a low-budget could deliver. This '70s telefilm Satan’s Triangle plot was so engaging and when I saw the 1997 Event Horizon film I recalled it. They took the Bermuda Triangle/Yacht/devil and replaced it with the outer solar system/Event Horizon spaceship/devil, so similar.
ReplyDeleteSGB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENhCjHjFLHk
ReplyDeleteSATAN'S TRIANGLE(1975) on youtube
SGB
I was, like SGB, going to mention "Event Horizon" as a parallel. The Bermuda Triangle was the subject of quite a large number of TV movies and documentaries. It's incredible how many wild, woolly, and yet surprisingly good TV movies were in the 70's. I think the restrictions in place at the time forced creative teams to really tighten up scripting, tease out directorial innovations, jettison a lot of ancillary material that added no value, and find suggestive and metaphorical opportunities with dialog. I think generally, the better TV movies had more limited casts and streamlined plots, while the lesser ones struggled to give enough material to too-large casts and threw the kitchen sink into the plot. I wish more of these things were circulated, as I remember a practically steady diet of good-to-excellent TV movies throughout my childhood and adolescence. Really an incredible number of them considering there were just three networks, although all three produced what seemed like at least one decent movie every week--in the case of ABC, more still. Not to mention summer time-fillers and after school specials. It began to seem as though television itself could not have existed without actors like Richard Crenna, Patty Duke, William Shatner, Arthur Hill, Robby Benson, John Savage, Dennis Weaver, and Linda Purl--all of whom were in a whole bunch of these things!
ReplyDeleteHi John, holy $&#%! I do indeed remember seeing this as a kid. I was 7 years old at the time and the ending floored me. To this day I can't get that freaky Devil Doug Mclure ending out of my mind. Thanks for bringing the nightmares back!
ReplyDeleteI saw this movie on television as a 9 year old boy in 1975. It had a profound effect on me then and has stayed with me ever since. It's one of the scariest movies I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteI also saw this as a child and have thought about it ever since. The line the "priest" says at the end, "you know who I am," scared the living day lights out of me.
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