Cruise Into Terror

In CRUISE INTO TERROR, an "all-star cast" sets off on a cruise through the Gulf of Mexico, only to be thrust into a life-threatening adventure into the unknown. Strange, near-fatal "coincidences" start happening.

Then, a cranky anthropologist (Ray Milland) wants to investigate a sacred tomb at the bottom of the Gulf, and the game is on! Things go from bad to worse, with supernatural occurrences aplenty. Annnd, there's a gale on the way!

Sort of like a haunted version of LOVE BOAT, this movie is a soggy cousin of HORROR AT 37,000 FEET. John Forsythe looks very stern and rants a lot as a preacher, while the beautiful Lee Meriwether tries her best to look frumpy as his frustrated wife. Christopher and Lynda Day George are also on board as a struggling married couple. The stunning Stella Stevens is a psychic divorcee, and Dirk Benedict is the First Mate.

This is guaranteed, top-of-the-line made-for-TV entertainment! Just make sure you watch out for that darned black cat!...

Now this '70s made-for-TV film has a fun little bit of history to it. While at the time bigtime TV-producer Aaron Spelling was executive producer on the massively successful "The Love Boat" series, it seems as if he thought it would be a great idea to produce some made-for-TV movies with the same wonderful boat setting, only this time adding thriller & horror to the mix. One of those movies turned out to be "Cruise Into Terror", about a bunch of people - ranging from average tourists to a doctor/professor/historian - ending up on a cargo ship en voyage towards the coast of Mexico. Oddly enough, Dr. Isiah Bakkun (the historian) is convinced of the existence of a sunken Egyptian pyramid near the coast of Mexico; a pyramid containing a sarcophagus containing... the Son of Satan! No kidding. Bizarre incidents & near-death accidents start happening soon enough, like sudden shark attacks and all technology on board giving up on them. Their fun 2-day voyage seems doomed, for some reason. When the ship eventually ends up floating dead in the water, they suddenly find themselves right above the location of the sunken pyramid. Naturally, both the greediest passengers (there must be a hidden treasure, of course!) as well as Dr. Bakkun consider this the chance of a lifetime. So they dive, bring up the sarcophagus and with it they bring on board a great, ancient evil. This might all sound a bit more exciting than it actually turns out, though. But still, this peculiar TV-movie remains a fun watch. Good old Ray Milland - who plays Dr. Bakkun - is mumbling his articulated lines with some enthusiasm and a young Dirk Benedict - once again playing a ladies' man, while also being the ship's second-in-command - is also amongst the cast, so that adds to the fun. And the sarcophagus - clearly made out of rubber - is one truly malevolent artifact. Or well, maybe not all that menacing-looking, but the thing is pure evil. Fun watch, if nothing else.

A handful of passengers and crew aboard a one-engine vessel in waters off the Gulf of Mexico are bedeviled by a cursed 2000-year old Egyptian sarcophagus brought up from a sunken pyramid in the depths. A resigned, somewhat beleaguered cast of old pros (including Hugh O'Brian, Lee Meriwether, Stella Stevens in a brunette wig, Ray Milland, John Forsythe as a priest, and the Georges--Christopher and Lynda Day) manage to get through the preliminaries and "Poseidon Adventure"-like character introductions without embarrassing themselves, but the underwater shots of swimmers combined with the "Jaws"-like music cues turns this TV-movie into instant camp. Aaron Spelling co-produced, perhaps as an antidote to his sticky-sweet "Love Boat" series.

This film essentially revolves around an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus being transported 2000 years earlier across the Atlantic Ocean and then buried-in what is now the Gulf of Mexico-with the hope and expectation that whatever is inside of it will never see the light of day. With that in mind, the movie begins with the captain of a cargo ship being ordered to take several passengers from the United States to Cozumel where they will then be off-loaded at that time onto a much larger cruise ship. Although "Captain Andrews" (Hugh O'Brian) doesn't like the idea of transporting these passengers on a ship which is in bad need of repair, he ultimately relents and after charting a new course departs for his directed destination. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, while at sea the ship encounters all kinds of mechanical and weather-related problems and as a result, he decides to temporarily acquiesce to the passenger's request to set anchor right above the underwater Egyptian tomb which houses the sarcophagus. Naturally, being rather curious, the passengers all decide to ignore the warnings of their fellow passenger "Reverend Charles Mather" (John Forsythe) and follow the guidance of an archeologist by the name of "Dr. Isiah Bakkun" (Ray Milland) who advises that they search for the sarcophagus and-upon finding it-retrieve it at all costs. But what none of them count on is the actual cost each of them will have to pay. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a rather mediocre made-for-television movie which had a solid cast but suffered from a ludicrous plot and its generically edited format. Having said that, however, it still managed to be somewhat entertaining and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.

This was decent. Approximately ten or twelve people are on a cruise, a varied group, when the sarcophagus is found on board. I don't think they dragged it up from the ocean depths. Tragedy ensues. Among those on board are Forsythe and Lee Meriwether, rather interesting as a minister and his wife. Two women are also on board, one rather carefree, the other a bit bookwormish. The sarcophagus contains the offspring of the devil and breathes at the most inopportune moments. Forsythe reveals that when the son of the devil returns to the Earth, there will be ten to witness it. "But there are eleven of us here now," someone says. Exactly, the ten witnesses, . . . and the guardian of the child. Which one is it? Possessions are subtle, the destruction of the vessel is imminent and the survivors are racing for the lifeboat. Forsythe and Meriwether are a scream here as the ship sinks, and keep an eye out for the cat. Rather a change from usual movie animals. Haven't seen this in a while. Instead of John Forsythe, I thought the reverend was Harold Gould, who played Rhoda Morganstern's father on television's "Rhoda", but I knew Lee Meriwether was the reverend's wife.