Triangle – all aboard the fail boat
Triangle is a psychological horror brought to our screens by Christopher Smith. Smith has not been particularly diverse with his cinematic offerings; he was behind budget horror Brit-flick Creep, and the gruesome Danny Dyer vehicle Severance. We enjoyed Creep, and found Severance good for a one-off watch and so were hoping for at least the same the third time round.
Triangle tells the tale of Jess (Melissa George), a single mother who reluctantly joins her friend Greg for a leisurely day of sailing, or at least that was the plan.
Greg’s friends clearly think Jess is a little peculiar; she shows up looking like she’s been dragged backwards through a bush and then slapped with a fish. Whilst her co-sailors are upbeat and ready to enjoy some fun in the sun, but Jess seems unable to get into the party mood.
An unfortunate encounter with a freak electrical storm dashes their boat to pieces. Conveniently the Aeolus, a passing ocean liner, happens to be in the vicinity, allowing the crew to clamber aboard to safety. Save for a mysterious bag-headed figure spotted on the deck before the group boarded, the ship appears to be completely deserted.
Things take another turn for the weird when Jess discovers her lost keys on one of the ship’s floors and starts experiencing some rather strong feelings of deja vu…
It seems that there is a time warp aboard the Aeolus, which causes events to repeat themselves as well as causing us, the audience, to sit through repeat viewings of the same scenes throughout the remainder of the film.
The start of Triangle is very promising, with events unravelling at a brisk pace. Smith knows his demographic, and he knows that we want to get to the messed-up craziness as quickly as possible.
Some people will find Triangle an enjoyable metaphysical yarn - one of the characters helpfully reminds us that Aeolus, in Greek mythology, is the father of Sisyphus, that unfortunate chap who was doomed to forever roll the same boulder up the side of a mountain, only for it to roll all the way back down to the bottom once he reached the summit.
Whilst some will find the allusions to the myth clever, we found the referencing less than subtle (even a little lazy) especially seeing as if you’re paying attention you can easily guess the twist of the film’s finale within the first fifteen minutes. Repetition of scenes from a narrative’s past can be done successfully as in Run, Lola, Run or Jackie Brown, but unfortunately we found Triangle to be predictable and less enthralling than a square dance.
That said, it looks great. There’s plenty of gore and chopped up bodies and the image of Melissa George stomping around the cavernous corridors of the Aeolus welding an axe reminded us of The Shining.
George apparently complained that she found filming so mentally gruelling that she was emotionally scarred for months afterwards. It has to be said that her performance is excellent and she saves the film from completely capsizing. The same unfortunately can’t be said of the supporting cast. Perhaps if the other characters had been more interesting we’d have cared more about watching the same irritating scene ten times from slightly different angles.
At the end of the day we found Triangle to be more like a circle - pointless.
Image from World of KJ
