Triangle – all aboard the fail boat
Friday, March 5th, 2010
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…

sci-fi horror treat. If you have been fortunate enough to catch the remake of 3:10 To Yuma, you may recall Russell Crowe’s right-hand man, played by the excellent Ben Foster. Foster continues his good form in Pandorum, a freaky horror combining The Descent and Event Horizon to immensely satisfying effect.
The title of this 2004 sci-fi thriller starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart refers to the notion of sensitive dependence in chaos theory, whereby a change in something seemingly innocuous, such as the flap of a butterfly’s wings, can have enormous and unpredictable ramifications, such as a hurricane in Asia. The film applies this theory to four children growing up in American suburbia whose young lives have been marred by tragedy. When Evan Treborn (Kutcher), one of the group who is now a psychology undegraduate, discovers he can travel back in time he decides to alter the present by ‘undoing’ the harrowing events of the past.
Set in Communist Romania in the final years of the Nicolae Ceauşescu era, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days tells the harrowing story of two female students who try to arrange an illegal abortion, 20 years after the practice was outlawed so that Ceauşescu would have more subjects to rule. Directed by Cristian Mungiu, it won the Palme d’Or and the FIPRESCI Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Mungiu based the film on a real story he had heard which he said “still affected me after more than 15 years”, and which had been repeated countless times among young Romanian women who turned to the black market to avoid the indignity and poverty that would accompany single motherhood. The film cost just $600,000 to make and forms part of a planned series of stories from Romania before the fall of the Iron Curtain, called Memories from the Golden Age.
Like many films that have come out of Germany in recent years, Yella is concerned with coming to terms with the past and adjusting to the present.
Following on from the earlier ramble about the forthcoming Watchmen film (which may or may not happen) we rifled through our DVD collection and dragged out The Hughes Brothers 2001 adaptation of From Hell – another Alan Moore graphic novel adaptation, this one about Jack the Ripper.
It’s ten minutes to midnight.
An unmarked video tape that kills you seven days after you’ve watched it is the focus for this psychological thriller, based on the Japanese horror film of the same name. More eerie than grotesque, The Ring is bound to send more than a few Hallowe’en shivers down your spine this Friday.