Skeptical journalist Blair Maynard (Michael Caine) is assigned to explore the area known as the Bermuda Triangle, where thousands of boats have disappeared in a three-year span. When he leaves the Florida coast with his adolescent son, Justin (Jeffrey Frank), their boat is shanghaied by a group of pirates led by the tyrannical John David Nau (David Warner). The pirates, who have lived undisturbed in the area for centuries, see father and son as new blood for their increasingly inbred clan.