Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42708 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-11-16
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.com
Hammer Studios prefigured both the explosion of Bermuda Triangle thrillers and "lost world" adventures with this appropriately gothic 1968 fantasy. Eric Porter stars as the brooding captain of a decrepit scow smuggling illegal explosives with a questionable crew and a desperate cadre of passengers (including Hildegard Kneff, Suzanna Leigh, and Tony Beckley) into a hurricane. The initial melodrama turns to high-seas adventure as the ship battles the storm with volatile cargo and finally to a strange, moody fantasy. The ship becomes entangled in a creeping tangle of aggressive weeds that pulls the vessel deep into a twilight world of monstrous mollusks, snakelike vines with a taste for human flesh, and an insular society descended from rogue elements of the Spanish Inquisition who prey upon the unlucky ships dragged to their hidden island. Rotting galleons set against the creepy orange sky create an unsettling, alien world, like a psychedelic spin on Jules Verne. If the film doesn't match the chills of earlier Hammer thrillers, it more than makes up for it in pure atmosphere and eerie mood. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

The Love Boat It Ain't!
Often referred to as, *The Love Boat On Acid*, this film is definitely a trip! It would be just my luck to book passage on a ship like this....Passengers that are on the run from various illegal acts, a crew that would rather take it's chances in a lifeboat, a Captain that oozes sarcasm and a trip straight to a lost continent; complete with man-eating seaweed, mutated crustaceans and the Spanish Inquisition! This film is *B* entertainment, pure and simple. This is easily one of my favortie Hammer films, I love the look and feel of this film, the sea monsters, the wild array of passengers and the opening theme to this film will definitely have you singing along for days. If you've watched your way through Hammer's Frankenstein, Dracula and Mummy series of films, then why not sit back and enjoy this sci-fi/fantasy/horror film? I guarantee you, this will be a film you'll never forget and if you think I'm kidding, just listen to that opening theme....*You have discovered the Lost Con-tin-ent!*.

Sargasso Sea Saga From Hammer!
The first half of this movie is straight adventure-at-sea: the seedy captain of an old rust-bucket illegally carries a cargo of high explosives; his motley crew are a mutinous lot; the passengers are all on the run from the law or their sins; and incompetence causes the ship to almost founder in a typhoon. But instead of sinking it becomes lost in the Sargasso Sea, trapped by entangling seaweed.

The second half is pure fantasy, with sea monsters, carnivorous kelp, a lost civilization living on derelict ships, descendants of the Spanish Inquisition still practicing their medieval profession, and a rebellion brewing among the slaves. In short, a swashbuckling saga of the bizarre kind, done up in the usual Hammer style, making low-budget movies look lavish on the screen.

I saw this movie at the old Paulo Drive-In in 1968. The drive-in has been gone now for about 20 years but I still remember it and some parts of this movie quite well. I remember the green-eyed monster with its obscene maw, and the big-breasted girl Sarah (Dana Gillespie) walking on the kelp bed with two big balloons on a harness supporting the weight of her very own two big balloons! And, of course, I remember Hildegarde Knef, still very lovely at the age of 43 when this movie was made. And apparently she's still active in films today, at the grand old age of 75! And probably still lovely, too! But evidently Dana Gillespie and her big balloons retired from the industry in 1990, the year of her last movie role.

So I was glad to see this movie again, on DVD, to refresh my memory, and with extra "adult" footage that it didn't have when I first saw it. Don't buy this DVD thinking that you're going to see any "adult" scenes, though! You're not! There's no nudity at all here and the sex is suggested, not shown. Unfortunately, also, the image quality is not the best. Many scenes are dark and murky. But the image is still sharp enough and the sound is good. Bonus features are the standard chapter index, trailer, TV spots, and Hammer films promo. Not bad, but only a Hammer film fan would love it. A little pricey, too, for what it offers.

Weird Gem
Buy this video. Don't watch it at first, stay up for five days straight first then, at about 3 or 4 am, when everyone else is asleep, drink about a gallon of sugar water and spin around in a chair for ten minutes, then pop it in. Pretend you're 8 years old again and you've stayed up all night just to watch it. By the time you get to the part where the conquistadors with the balloon shoes walk across the ocean you should be just about ready to lose your mind. What the hell is this thing! Who made it and why? These and other questions will go unanswered. This is one weird movie.