Satan's Triangle

SATAN’S TRIANGLE

A superb 1975 made-for-TV movie, Satan’s Triangle takes place almost entirely on a boat.  A Coast Guard rescuer named Haig boards the vessel from which a distress signal originates.  There he finds three corpses (including a priest hanging upside down from a mast) and one survivor (a traumatized woman named Eva).  Haig’s Coast Guard partner takes the helicopter back to base (citing engine trouble and low fuel).  Haig listens to Eva tell the tale of what happened on the boat, and the story unfolds through a series of flashback scenes.  Essentially the members of a fishing expedition spot the priest adrift on the wing of a plane and rescue him from the ocean, at which point a mysterious storm arises and unusual accidents claim the lives of everyone but Eva (who attributes the deaths to the fact that the boat was in the middle of the Devil’s Triangle).  Haig provides a rational explanation for each death, and at dawn the Coast Guard returns to rescue Haig and Eva.  A spectacular twist ending (the nature of which I will not spoil here) then turns the story on its ear.

Absolutely deserving of an official DVD release and a big-screen remake, Satan’s Triangle features atmospheric music and a plot that layers one narrative question atop another until the viewer is dying to know what’s going on.  The whole project is a lesson in superior creative storytelling.  This is one made-for-TV tale well-worth seeking out.