Terror nas Profundezas

This was released on a widescreen VHS tape by Anchor Bay a few years back, and if you're a fan of silly, slowly-paced, violent 70's films, you may find it to be fun.

This is a fairly standard treasure hunt film in which some decent people decide to photocopy a supposedly cursed map ("If there was a curse, it could hardly go through a copy machine," the narrator confidently explains) and go looking for the sunken cache of gold. Nice underwater footage of rotting old boats, sharks, coral, and various kinds of grody sea scum. It seems that the diving footage was captured first, and the script then written around it; the film subsequently made with actors wearing diving suits that matched those of the divers in the original footage. At least, that's what it looks like to me. If that is the case, it's pulled off fairly well.

Film is notable, or maybe not, for its 70's-style mean-spirited violence, which provides for some fairly graphic and shocking moments, including sharks munching on a girl, and a face burned on a barbecue. This was before sophisticated gore effects were in vogue, and so most of the violence is achieved with simple makeup and bright red opaque 70's blood poured all over the place. The intent to startle is clearly there.

As mentioned in another review, there is a G-rated cut of the film available, in case you'd like to see the treasure-hunt stuff without the gruesome, gory violence. This shorter cut isn't too bad either!

Not high art, but it's not a bad movie, really, just a bit of low-budget exploitation.

I honestly don't get it! How is it possible that this movie was so dreadfully boring in spite of all the indicators of pure 70's entertainment? Look at all the potentially great stuff here: we have a plot about cursed treasures in sunken galleons, the robust macho actor Stephen Boyd, marvelously exotic Granada filming locations, Jordan Ladd's equally astounding mother Cheryl in a tiny bikini, shark attacks and boat explosions! Adventure movies like this are practically a guaranteed success, yet somehow director Virginia L. Stone managed to ruin the formula entirely. How? Through a combination of inexplicably slow pacing, completely inappropriate slapstick elements and a ridiculous Benny Hill-esquire score and the overuse of irritating clichés (like villains with atrocious German accents). At the scene of a crime, homicide inspector Hugo Graham finds an ancient treasure map that supposedly carries a curse with it. All the previous nine owners of the map died violent deaths, regardless of whether they even attempted to track down the treasure or not. Fascinated by the mystery, Graham takes a photocopy of the map and mobilizes four of his friends to go treasure hunting during his annual vacation. As if the film itself isn't boring enough yet, there's also Boyd's completely unnecessary and monotonous narration. The action sequences and stunts are poorly handled, stupid and too obviously fake. All the available budget for this movie clearly went to the waterproof camera equipment and location hunters. Admittedly the underwater photography is impressive and the Jamaica/Granada locations look like postcards, with their crystal blue waters, colorful reefs and tropical sandy beaches.

"The Treasure of Jamaica Reef" is a terrible film from start to finish. It is cheap, poorly made and dull....and those are among its better qualities. The story often is told through narration instead of actually showing or doing anything and the movie just looks cheap and awful.

The story is about a search for a sunken galleon in the Port Royal area of Jamaica, a town that sank into the sea during the 17th century. Much of it filmed in nearby Falmouth as well as in the reefs nearby.

The only interesting aspect of the film was interesting to me because I got to see what diving in the 1970s looked like AND I just visited Falmouth the day before I watched the movie...and I still gave it a 1! For the average person, it would only be worse!!

The original working and first release title (co-feature with "Witch Mountain") by Buena Vista was "Secrets Of Jamaica Reef".

Cheryl Ladd was credited as Cheryl Stoppelmoor, because that was her name when working on the film. She met David Ladd -=on=- this film and married (after his divorce) later! Not that the film is any better for it, but the original was almost totally filmed on location in Jamaica. It was 'spiced up' with later 'additions' such as those commented upon by the first review.

Daily'd, Sync'd and Edited in Jamaica.

JA - Production Sound Mixer

In the scenes under water, this movie came across as one of those bad films we had to watch in school--poor audio, home-movie quality video, bad new age music, boring narration. But the plant and animal life in the sea was amazing, and quite well photographed. And when the "treasure" was changed from buried gold to coffins on a sunken ship, I thought the photography of the wreck was also good.

Once we got out of the water, the underwater scenes seemed like a masterpiece. I was starting to wonder (since I arrived late) whether this was a college or independent project where someone followed around a group of friends. No, there were villains, and no documentary would have had scenes with only the villains. It was a pleasure to see some potential for conflict, because at least these people could act, unlike our heroes.

Cheryl Ladd had beautiful long blonde hair and looked good in a bikini, though she usually wore more, which was a shame. If her character was supposed to be intelligent or have special skills, I couldn't tell. For the ladies, Darby Hinton usually wore only a swimsuit.

I will say that the quality of the music improved at times, because it sometimes included fine classical piano in the style of Ferrante and Teicher or Roger Williams. Even the alien noises that usually dominated might be considered quality by the coffee house poetry crowd.

And the narration also seemed to improve. The only good writing seemed to be the narrator's, bordering on poetic at times.

I do need to single out one scene. In a James Bond movie, this type of situation is a staple and often spellbinding. Here, it was poorly executed, poorly edited, and quite confusing. I finally realized what was going on, but in a good movie it would be obvious.

This could have been quite a fascinating movie. Instead, it probably should have stayed buried.