Bermuda Island (2023) - Horror Film Review

I believe that this is the first horror film I have reviewed on this blog that had an IMDB release year of 2023. Bermuda Island was directed by Adam Werth (first assistant director on Tommyknockers, Bridge of the Doomed), with a story by Michael and Sonny Mahal. I've never seen the TV show Lost, but the idea here of survivors of a plane crash finding themselves on a very strange island gave me vibes of that regardless. 

After an aeroplane on its way to Puerto Rico inexplicably finds itself in the middle of a tremendous storm, the pilot is forced to crash land in the sea. The survivors wash up on a seemingly deserted nearby island where they think their main troubles are behind them. That evening however, the group are attacked by a group of humanoid monsters, but end up being saved by the mysterious Bruce (John Wells - One Must Fall). He reveals that he got stranded on the island many years back, and ever since has been in a nightly struggle against the group of monsters. With his expertise at surviving he offers to lead the group, but roughly half of the survivors decide to instead splinter off and instead follow the leadership of argumentative FBI agent Victor (Wesley Cannon - Death Count). Bruce's group, who include among them the main-ish protagonists Damon (Victor V Gelsomino - Tommyknockers) and Carolyn (Sarah French - Bridge of the Doomed, Death Count) soon learn the island has even more bizarreness than the lethal monsters in store for them.

Strangely, my favourite parts of Bermuda Island all occurred before the appearance of the monstrous island inhabitants. I really enjoyed the first act which did a great job at introducing the various characters, due to them all waiting around together to board their flight. There were too many characters to get a good hold on who they all were, but included a bunch of fun roles, such as the flamboyant gothic singer Midnight (Greg Tally - Tommyknockers), two bright and cheery half-brothers, Diego (Noel Gugliemi - Training Day, The Fast and the Furious); a drug lord being taken to trial, and an incessantly complaining 'Karen' type character. I also thought the gun fight that opened the film was fun to watch, if near totally unrelated to anything else in the movie, and the whole section that takes place on the plane, and the subsequent crash were all fun. The highlight of the movie for me was Bruce, I found him to be a fascinating character for the most part, certainly stood out in his scenes.

The monsters in the movie kind of look like the Predator, but are green and wearing loincloths. To me, they always looked like people dressed up in costumes rather than actual monsters and so it was always hard to take them as too much of a threat. That is despite a gigantic bodycount, far more people end up meeting their ends than I expected, and these are all shown in scenes that feature lots of blood and gore. Limbs are severed, insides are pulled out, and no end of characters have their throats torn out, all lovely stuff. Being a film with more than its fair share of comedic characters (not a complaint, I enjoyed these characters more than the more serious ones), it is probably not a surprise that these deaths don't really seem to affect the characters too much. It led to some weird moments, such as Damon and Carolyn going off on their own to have a half naked swim in a pool of water the very next day after the group first encounter the monsters. The amount of times characters got picked off as they slept or lay injured made it seem like there was organised watch, but it did keep the film from ever becoming dull.

There was a lot of strangeness with the island, with some unexpected twists and turns along the way. I found it interesting that there was never an explanation given as to the origins of the creatures. Less good for me was a late film heel turn which didn't really make much sense, it at least made the actions of earlier in the movie a little pointless. This particular twist came out of absolute nowhere, while it almost got turned around to some sort of an explanation, the movie frustratingly cuts to credits swiftly after, leaving me slightly confused as to what had happened and why.

With a stunning location, lots of bloody kills, and a varied cast of characters, Bermuda Island was a fun indie horror that never took itself too seriously. I found elements of the plot to be a little poorly developed, it had quite an abrupt ending, and I wasn't completely on board with the design of the monsters, but I would be lying if I said I didn't have some fun watching this. Bermuda Island is released January 20th in North America on VOD, Blu-ray and DVD through Gravitas Ventures.

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