Devil's Triangle (2021) poster

Devil’s Triangle (2021)

Rating:


USA. 2021.

Crew

Director – Brendan Petrizzo, Screenplay – Brendan Haley & Joe Roche, Producer – David Michael Latt, Photography – Xavier Dubose & Marcus Friedlander, Music – Christopher Cano & Mikel Shane Prather, Visual Effects Supervisor – Glenn Campbell, Makeup – Monique Parades, Production Design – Kalise Wallace. Production Company – The Asylum.

Cast

Morgan Bradley (Vera), Alyson Gorske (Sam), Myron Kingery (King Nereus), Fred Williamson (Pluto), Liam Hawley (Del), Torrey Richardson (Ruth), Mark Valeriano (Owen), Alissa Filoramo (Archimedes), Anthony M. Preston (Erastos)


Plot

A passenger plane is struck by ray beams emanating from the ocean and crashes. Various survivors wash up on a beach and discover that they are in Atlantis. They are made prisoners by Atlantean soldiers and taken before the king Nereus who insists they be treated as honoured guests. Nereus appeals to Sam who has piloting skills and sees her as capable of steering the submarine he has constructed using materials from scavenged ships. However, the others discover that Nereus is intent on using the submarine to wipe out the surface world in order to put a stop to climate change and the pollution of the oceans.


The Asylum is a US company specialising in low-budget films. They have become most known for their Mockbusters – films that come out with titles intended to mimic those of big-budget releases in the hope that people will mistake them or not look too closely – and deliberately ridiculous killer shark films, as typified by the whole Sharknado (2013) phenomenon. In between this, they make a good many other disaster movies and other works.

Atlantis originates in the works of Plato. Although there is no evidence to suggest that Plato wrote anything other than an allegorical work, Atlantis has become the archetypal Lost World in fiction and on screen, while there have even been real world searches for its locale. It has appeared in a great many films – everything from Atlantis, The Lost Continent (1961) to Disney’s animated Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and Aquaman (2018). (For a more detailed overview see Films About Atlantis).

Devil’s Triangle stirs an entertaining mix – Atlantis, The Bermuda Triangle, the tyrant king of Atlantis planning to declare war on the surface with an arsenal of super-science weapons and a reconditioned hi-tech submarine, Fred Williamson as one of several navy crew members that have been abducted, attacking giant hydra that are used by the king to dispose of political dissidents.

Atlantis in Devils Triangle (2021)
Atlantis

Unfortunately, the possibilities run up against the usual The Asylum corner-cutting. There is a reasonable effort made to let Atlantis look mildly exotic on a low-budget but most of this also ends looking like it is being filmed in a series of narrow corridors. What seems lacking is in any of the epic Grecian palaces that we have had in prior versions of the story. On the plus side, The Asylum’s digital effects are getting steadily better these days and there are some reasonable cut-price shots of the city, the submarine and of hydra tentacles attacking.

Equally so, the film never lets us clear as to where exactly Atlantis is. It is said to be in The Bermuda Triangle. The survivors end up on an island, which would suggest that Atlantis is aboveground. At contrast to this, there are other scenes that indicate it is an underwater city, while the king talks about declaring war on the surface world.

Even then the story degenerates to much interpersonal drama and not terribly interesting in-politicking among the Atlantans and humans as the king attempts to do a Captain Nemo and declare war on the surface world. The only name actor to turn up is Fred Williamson, a Blaxploitation star of the 70s. Now in his 80s, Williamson is looking a little past it as he tries to give the role of the former submarine captain the old college try.

Devil’s Triangle was the second feature-film from director Brendan Petrizzo who had previously worked as a second unit director and producer on various films for The Asylum. Petrizzo had previously made Monster Hunters (2020) for The Asylum. Scriptwriter Joe Roche has also written Collision Earth (2020), Meteor Moon (2020), Alien Conquest (2021), Planet Dune (2021), Robotapocalypse (2021), 4 Horsemen: Apocalypse (2022), Battle for Pandora (2022), Moon Crash (2022), Methgator (2023) and Doomsday Meteor (2023) for The Asylum.


Trailer here


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