Encounters in the Deep (1979)

I love this movie so much

To me, this movie is perfection.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

ENCOUNTERS IN THE DEEP is a poor and fumbled attempt to cash-in on two separate and popular Hollywood sub-genres of the era: the underwater exploration movie inspired by THE DEEP (and JAWS before it), and the alien encounter flick stemming from Spielberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Sadly, in the hands of Italian trash director Tonino Ricci, this film is a hopeless mess for fans of either genre, and that comes from somebody who's a fan of some of the director's output, like RUSH: THE ASSASSIN and its sequel. The fumbled premise has a diver hunting for extraterrestrials beneath the waves, but the story is alternatively muddled and dragged out and made little sense to me. Andres Garcia parades around in his swimwear a lot but has little acting talent while the clumsy special effects are quite pitiful. I can't imagine anyone enjoying this turgid enterprise.

To say this film is a fantastic piece of filmography would be an understatement. Made in 1979, the practical effects still stand up to this day. The storyline of finding an underwater world inhabited by aliens in the Bermuda Triangle is quite simply inspired! I watched the English dub of the film and the actors used conveyed the emotions shown by the characters in the film perfectly. I can't believe "Mike" didn't gain more recognition for his portrayal of "Crazy Eyes".This film is quite simply one of the best films I've seen of late and it would be great to see it rebooted, possibly with Jean Claude Van Damme.10/10

What do we know about the Bermuda Triangle other than what dozens of "experts" tell us? The fact that so many ships and planes have disappeared in this region will probably remain a mystery same as UFOs. But there's also the fact that no one has yet burrowed BELOW the bed of the ocean or even tried to find Glenn Miller's plane?. Here some attempt is made to suggest that an Alternative Universe exists well below the sea and that it may very well hold the answer to all the UFO activity. Imagine UFOs don't come from out of the sky but out of the sea where they cruise the skies looking for a place to land. I've seen a UFO and they glide before disappearing-just like so many have said.

I picked this one up in a weird charity shop as it had weird cover art featuring an exploding aeroplane above an ocean full of sharks fins, people over-board a ship and an odd large alien shaped hand. Anyway as the credits rolled for this Italian/Spanish co production, I noticed the music was by the (usually god-like genius) Stelvio Cipriani and the main star was Andrés García, the handsome muscle guy who starred in Tintorera. The film starts with a voice-over intro about U.F.O's and the Bermuda Triangle... Strange occurrences begin happening in the Bermuda area (will they ever learn?) as boats, ships and helicopters (yeah!) disappear into thin air after a high pitched screeching noise is heard, the sea water bubbles and a weird green light pulsates into red (very basic not so special effects). A rich old guy's much loved daughter and her new husband (wearing possibly the smallest white hot-pants I have ever seen) experience the same fate and the old guy wants to find out what happened to them. So he hires a bloke (money no object) with a theory about the disappearances to go and search the area they went missing. He takes with him Andrés García and an old sailor who likes the whisky, an Alsation dog and some some other bland characters (divers etc.) Anyway, as they search and search you really expect something to happen, but sadly it never really does. They search the area for what takes up nearly the entire film, dodging the occasional stock-footage shark and discovering rocks unlike any other found before. One of the divers who sports a beard gets possessed by something in the water and the dog growls at him. It really is this exciting. Eventually Andrés and the other guy discover an underground (and under sea) grotto with a huge statue like one found on Easter Island.I won't give away the ending, because I want other people to watch the entire film (like I had to) see what the climax would be. I will say though, that silver body suits and silver crash helmets do not make for good space aliens with intelligent and supreme powers!The score by Stelvio Cipriani was a lot more orchestral than I was expecting (not like the superb 'Tentacoli') and there's no suspense to speak of, but if you like the look of Andrés García, you wont be disappointed as you do get to see him in very skimpy underpants for almost the entire film.