The January 14, 1975 ABC TV Movie of the Week totally had the zeitgeist of the country pegged, because the Bermuda Triangle was all I could remember kids talking about. How could this little section of the ocean keep stealing all these planes and ships? And now, in 2021, no one talks about it at all.

USCG pilot and his winchman Haig (Doug McClure) rescues Eva (Kim Novak), the lone survivor of a wreck who claims that it was all caused by the evil Father Peter Martin (Alejandro Ray, Mr. Majestyk*). Yet all is not what it seems to be.

Sutton Roley directed tons of TV but also did Chosen Survivors and The Loners. He’s working from a script by William Read Woodfield, who started his career as a photographer, shooting Elizabeth Taylor and Jayne Mansfield, as well as nudes of Marilyn Monroe on the set of Something’s Got to Give. He was also the magic consultant on Mission: Impossible.

This movie is a tight 74 minutes and an atmosphere of doom. It’s one of the better Bermuda Triangle movies you’ll find. Other examples are Beyond the Bermuda Triangle, Death Ship, The Triangle, Triangle, The Fantastic Journey, the 1979 documentary The Bermuda Triangle, Rene Cardonna’s Jr.’s The Bermuda Triangle, The Bermuda Depths, the lucha film Mystery in the Bermuda Triangle, the 27th dimension threat of Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle, Escape from Atlantis, Lost Voyage, Lost in the Bermuda Triangle and, inevitably, David DeCoteau’s 1313: Bermuda Triangle.

As for Doug McClure, he’s learned nothing about the evils of the ocean and battled it again in movies like Warlords of Atlantis and Humanoids from the Deep.

*This is a movie of Bronson co-stars, as Ed Lauter (Breakheart Pass, Death Wish 3) and Jim Davis (The Magnificent Seven) also appear.