mr-bax

King of the mexican B-movies Rene Cardona jr. Directs this fascinating late 70's horror movie about an evil doll found somewhere in the Caribbean's Bermuda Triangle by a hired expedition yacht.

The Bermuda Triangle has a marvelous cast including John Huston and, as it is mexican, plenty of beef walking on that deck. Beginning with the always -in no steroids- perfectly built Andres Garcia as the skipper and he's flanked by former 007 girl Claudine Auger, the beautiful Gloria Guida and the french beauty Marina Vlady.

The crew of the yacht is backed by some colourful characters that made this movie lighter. Special lines were given to mexican golden age singer and actor Cuban born Jorge Zamora playing the cook and his oddities. Sort of Melville's old Fleece in Moby Dick.

There are some well elaborated violent scenes as this is a horror movie but this is compensated by quietness and the beauty of the blue sea; and Cardona jr. Is brave enough with accomplishing a very well staged underwater scene that doesn't look made in a tank.

The most freightening thing here is that doll. I watched this movie in big screen when it came out. My mother, back then, used to have a doll dressed in pink resting on her bed. My relationship with that doll was never the same after watching this movie. As of today i don't know where is she, or it.

It seems there are some technical flaws in this movie and some stiff acting but, after all, this is a B-movie and those flaws add to its charm.

Well paced until its very end and, because of fond memories that obvoiusly will add another star, i give to this movie 8 out of 10.

Another well crafted feature by this master of the visuals that is Bergman.

Sexy Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom are the travelers that cross a certain country in the brink of war. Ester the elder of the sisters played by Ingrid Thulin is ill but she constantly hits the bottle while at work, bed bounded at their hotel. Street shots, caffe houses and billboards assume the action somewhere in the Balkans, a contrast this so relevant for the development and beauty of this movie.

The characters of both ladies are softened by the presence of Anna's blond child that accompanies them in their journey and, in his wanderings at the hotel, he succeeds in detaching us from the issues of the movie itself, thus creating a parallel reality dwarfs and all, alien to the woes of his elders present anguish.

As a classic painter would use the golden rule to compose a work of art, Ingmar Bergman uses the character of Håkan Jahnberg, the buttler, to unify his movie and give it depth. As such, the stern but easy going formality of the buttler is the iron rod that witness this domestic tragedy unfolding to our eyes, mesmerized by the beauty and impudence of its protagonists.

A beautifully made film. 10 stars out of 10.

Lovely Avril Elgar plays Dorie, the wife in this story of a grown in years childless lady who's husband, a manager's bank, will retire and soon will be home full time.

There's some well hidden good humor in this tale of anxiety that develops in the life of Dorie, as we witness how her tiny little world begins to crumble under the sheer passive but abrassive weight of her husband's own physical prescence and petty pedantry. Avril Elgar let be remember plays the old lady that suicides in The Medusa Touch with Richard Burton and Lee Remick.

Good story and good acting by a limited number of actors in an unpretentious setting is all what was needed, and it will keep you glued to the screen as i haven't seen a movie as good as this in years. Enjoy it.

I give 10 stars out of 10.