Beyond Atlantis (1973)

There is an island in the Pacific that is home to the refugees of Atlantis.  The population is small so they have managed to remain hidden from the world.  All that changes when a crime boss named East Eddie finds out about the pearls that lie all around their island.  Eddie puts together a crew of divers and gunmen to head to the island for some pearl hunting.  But the natives aren’t ready to give up their treasure quite as readily as everyone hoped.  This all ends in a gun battle, betrayal, and explosions!

So if you have hung out here at Gutmunchers.com long enough you will have figured out by now that I’m a huge fan of drive-in movies.  I just love the cheesy done on a low budget feel that many of them have.  One of my favorites is this movie Beyond Atlantis.  It has everything that I expect from a flick like this. 

The story is kind of silly with the refugees from Atlantis living on an island in the Pacific trying to keep their culture alive.  The best and probably sort of offensive part is that all the brown members of the culture have fish eyes from years of inbreeding.  While the ruler and his daughter are white and have normal eyes because they mate with outsiders…  Hey it was the ‘70s so go figure!  The movie also plays like an old serial adventure story with the characters coming to the island to get the pearls and fight the natives who would rather they didn’t.  Heck it isn’t only the spear throwing fish eyed natives that menace them, but also a pit of crabs and some cannibal fish (piranha)!  We even get a random cute critter tossed into the pool to show how mean the fish can be (fear not they didn’t actually kill the animal). 

This movie also boasts an all-star “B” cast.  That is some of my favorite actors from this kind of movie.  For most the two biggest names are Patrick Wayne and Sid Haig as two of the crew come to the island to get rich.  I especially like Haig who plays East Eddie.  He dominates every scene that he is in and has some great bits of dialogue.  The part where he explains why they call him East Eddie is classic.  And since Beyond Atlantis was shot in the Philippines we have to have a Vic Diaz sighting.  Diaz is pretty good here as a local fisherman that turns the tables on our main characters.  Guys seriously for a drive-in in movie like this you just can’t have a better cast!

Beyond Atlantis is a cheesy drive-in movie that always entertains, no matter how many times that I’ve watched it.  If you dig this kind of movie and haven’t seen it yet you need to do yourself a favor and correct that.  It is the perfect time to do so since the long out of print DVD has been included in the Scream Theater set from VCI.  Check out this site here for more details. 

3 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2011 John Shatzer