Director – Adam Werth (Rancher’s Kin, The Hunt on Bar-Neth)
Starring – John Wells (They See You, Tales from Parts Unknown), Sarah French (Pretty Moon, Death Count), and Tom Sizemore (Vampfather, Night of the Tommyknockers)
Release Date – 2023
Rating – 3/5
Last year I watched my very first Mahal Empire release when Sonny Mahal sent over Night of the Tommyknockers for review. I was very interested in the film because I grew up in a mining community and was familiar with the legends surrounding Tommyknockers. I was very surprised by the film and found myself really enjoying it.
I know Mahal Empire is a busy production company with many films in various stages of production but one that caught my eye was their newest film Bermuda Island. As I stated earlier, my experience with Mahal Empire is very limited but I’ve enjoyed what I saw so when Sonny hit me up to review Bermuda Island I quickly said yes. Thanks, Sonny, for sending this one over!
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a group of people who are boarding a flight to a tropical island. However, a freak electrical storm kills their engines and they find themselves crashing into the ocean. After several hours some survivors find themselves stranded on an island with something carnivorous hunting them at night. The survivors split after another survivor, who has been trapped there since World War I, forming two factions with the same goal in mind but something much more sinister is waiting for them as the day turns to night. **Spoiler Alert**
Bermuda Island started out on the goofy side. In fact, I thought I was watching a SyFy original film. The first 20 minutes or so of the film makes absolutely no sense but once the ball gets rolling the movie is able to find its footing. It’s not perfect but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy.
The acting in this one is very inconsistent. In most of the scenes we get solid performances from a good portion of the cast. However, several scenes, some of which would be considered key scenes, felt flat with no energy or enthusiasm. I don’t know if working in the sun zapped them or tension on set was a factor but some of the scenes felt like high school plays with the cast as stiff as cardboard.
The story for this one starts out poorly but does work its way into something enjoyable. The first twenty something minutes is a way to shoehorn Noel Gugliemi and Tom Sizemore into the film and kill them off quickly. It doesn’t really make sense in the film as to why they would put a hardened criminal on a plan headed to a tropical island, but it happened. However, after that the movie finds its own story to tell and its fun for the most part. People fighting with each other and monsters that hunt at night is a great blend of action and horror.
Finally, the film has plenty of blood and fun effects. The make-up and practical effects look great and the deaths we do get to see on camera are enjoyable. With that being said, the kills are not that imaginative and the gore was not as fun as it could have been. Overall, Bermuda Island will be skipped by a lot of you but for those of you that are open to it you will find something fairly decent. It’s not the best genre film I’ve ever seen but it does hit the spot especially if you are looking for something a little different.
