Triangle

For city dwellers, the daily drive to work has to be to potential for the world’s worst advancement in technology. The scenery is the same, the gridlock is a foregone conclusion and chances are strong the local radio stations are playing the same songs they did at the same time the previous four days. It’s like a hellish sense of déjà vu that only ends at retirement, switching jobs or a new shopping center with the same stores. Mixing the same sense of repetition and horror comes Christopher Smith’s Triangle, a joint British and Australian production that has a strong visual style but a horrible story that not only wants its characters to suffer, but as a viewer, I suffered too.

Jess (Melissa George) is something of an outcast. Between raising her autistic son and working as a waitress, she has little time for things like friends. This makes her something of an outcast. But when she’s invited to spend a day sailing, she jumps at the chance. A storm hits, the boat is flipped and Jess and her friends are rescued by a passing ocean liner. From there, the film gets stuck on repeat as everyone gets stuck in a looping horror filled with a masked monster, cryptic messages and dead bodies.

Triangle is one of those movies that makes the viewer scratch their head and wonder what is going on. It literally repeats scenes with only slight differences, kind of like Groundhog Day but without Ned and the laughs. The time trap is an interesting concept but the way it plays out isn’t. It’s a dangerous thing for a movie to repeat itself. It needs a good reason and I wasn’t convinced with Triangle. As a book, it might have been more forgiving. But the problem here is that I didn’t find the film interesting on its first take so when the realization of time being stuck comes clear, the ensuing run-throughs became less interesting – even annoying.

That being said, Smith presents the film with a strong visual flair that doesn’t go overboard. High-contrast colors are emphasized over excessive editing. What makes Smith’s work standout is how he puts together shots that are genuinely frightening without a lot of tricks. They add to the chaos and confusion of the story, all the while adding to the creepy factor.

That being said, ideas and visuals aren’t always enough. Triangle shows some merit, but I always had this lingering sense that the film was trying to be a little more than it actually was. Although confusing, I didn’t find it terribly deep or enlightening. In fact, Triangle’s boring, even when you discount the déjà vu. It’s kind of like sitting in traffic, the world’s worst advancement in technology.

Triangle Blu-ray Review

Triangle hits Blu-ray with a sparse offering. The film is shown in a nice 1080p high definition widescreen picture. Audio is in Dolby True HD English with subtitles in both English and Spanish. The only extra is rough interviews with cast and crew.