Where are you going? You're trapped here like the rest of us. There's no escape.
In the late '60s/early '70s, Hammer Films periodically wandered out of its Gothic horror comfort zone, producing some of its stranger genre efforts in the process. One of those was 1968's The Lost Continent, based on the Dennis Wheatley novel Uncharted Seas, which to be frank is a much better title since its protagonists don't reach any continent -- lost or otherwise -- until a good hour of the film has elapsed (and even later in the uncut version). And once they do, what they find is so mind-boggling bizarre one wishes they had reached it much sooner. Maybe I just have a thing for scenes with guys in hoods, but I would have gladly spent more time with the sinister Grand Inquisitor (Eddie Powell). But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Structured by writer/director Michael Carreras as a movie-length flashback (prompted by the rhetorical voice-over, "What happened to us? How did we all get here?"), The Lost Continent's story gets underway as the nominally shipshape freighter of captain Eric Porter limps out of port, barely evading the customs officials seeking to board it. Seems in addition to transporting a ragtag collection of passengers who are personae non grata for one reason or another, Porter is also smuggling some highly volatile explosives that are especially dangerous when they come into contact with water (which is pretty much a given since they're being shipped on it). When the crew gets wind that they're heading straight into a hurricane instead of turning back, they rally behind first officer Neil McCallum and abandon ship, forcing Porter to rely on his passengers and the few remaining crew members when the weather starts getting rough.
Now, what about those passengers? Well, there's secretive beauty Hildegard Knef, disgraced doctor Nigel Stock and his daughter Suzanna Leigh, frequently soused piano player Tony Beckley, and mysterious stranger Benito Carruthers, who has Knef's number. After they're pressed into service by Porter, they have run-ins on the increasingly hostile sea with sharks and killer seaweed (shades of The Day of the Triffids), as well as a green, one-eyed octopus thing, but dry land isn't any more hospitable thanks to the giant crab and scorpion they encounter there. They're a doddle, though, compared to the conquistadors and other minions of boy-god-king El Supremo (Darryl Read), the puppet of Powell's white-hooded Grand Inquisitor. Just look into those eyes. Would you dare defy him?
