Rene Cardona Jr.’s Cyclone is assembled from a whirlwind of durable disaster movie cliches. There’s extreme weather, multiple doomed boat voyages, and a plane crash. Since it was released in the late ‘70s, there’s also a subplot about a killer shark in there to ride the coattails of Jaws.
Like Cardona’s Treasure of the Amazon and The Bermuda Triangle, it’s overlong (nearly two hours) and has way too many characters and subplots. Because of the choppy plotting, and the cutting back and forth between the different groups of survivors, the early scenes can be rough going a lot of the time. Some of the inane special effects are good for a laugh (like when branches are beaten against the camera lens to simulate heavy winds rollicking through the trees), but they aren’t nearly cheesy enough to make it a camp classic.
About halfway through, the film switches gears and becomes a tale of survival. It’s here where the survivors eventually gather aboard a tourist vessel and hunker down. Faced with a dwindling water supply, no food, and no prospect of being rescued, they start to consider their options. You just know the little dog (named “Christmas”) is gonna be the first to go. This sequence is in especially poor taste and is far more unconscionable than the scenes where the survivors eventually resort to cannibalism.
I guess it goes without saying that the cheesy early disaster movie scenes are a lot more fun than the schlocky survival sequences. Even in its second act, it fails to drum up much suspense. As lumbering and slow as much of the film is, Cardona totally rushes through the finale as cast member after cast member is devoured by sharks until the last remaining survivors are escorted to safety before the flick finally tosses in the towel and ends. The abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion does little to win back any goodwill Cardona lost during the objectionable dog scene, but on the bright side, at least the movie is over at long last.
AKA: Tornado. AKA: Terror Storm. AKA: Without Warning.
I didn't find this movie tasteless at all personally and thought it was fine. I don't agree with this notion that dogs shouldn't be killed in films.
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