Jess is a single mother with an autistic son named Tommy, whom she has been planning on taking out for a boat trip. While her companions wait for her at the docks, she ends up arriving alone, appearing to be quite shaken. The small group commences sailing, with several of these strangers reacquainting or introducing themselves to Jess. A lengthy amount of time passes, and a strange, seemingly unavoidable storm appears in the sky before them. During this chaos, the boat is flipped, and one person disappears after it has passed. Panicked, but still optimistic, the gang spots an ocean liner approaching, and they proceed to scream for help before boarding it. Oddly enough, the ship appears to be abandoned, but Jess can't seem to shake the feeling that this vessel seems eerily, disturbingly familiar.
Man.
Just....man.
Yesterday, I revisited France's Martyrs, a sinister effort that I initially dismissed back in the day, only to find myself being able to appreciate it more upon a second viewing. It was twisted, unique, and wholly memorable, shooting itself into the top ten of films that I have eyeballed thus far. Basically, what many feel is lacking from a large chunk of scary movies that are relatively easy to obtain. For what feels like the first time since the earliest entries in this year's Unseen Terror, I feel that we have the very rare one-two combo with back-to-back flicks that are equals to one another in terms of quality and originality, though this foray into psychological terror from British director Christopher Smith (Black Death, Severance), simply known as Triangle, deserves far more attention than it has received by now.
If one were to google pictures of a production such as this, your first thoughts would be most likely be "Ryan, this just appears to be another run-of-the-mill "killer on the loose" or slasher movie, but set out at sea rather than anywhere on land. Considering all that is out there for viewing and how some of the plots and characters are interchangeable, you can't fool me into watching this."
"You've got some attitude mister."
Triangle could possibly be the hardest piece of media of which I must try to not spoil anything, proving to be more difficult than anything that I've had to deal with in a very long time, be it for this blog-o-thon or just for an average review. Its plot is more akin to complex puzzles such as Christopher Nolan's Memento, and by god you must absolutely pay attention to every minor detail, so as to not get lost and fully grasp every single action taken by its characters. Though the cast of characters assembled may not be unusually complex or uncommon themselves, Melissa George (30 Days Of Night, Dark City) is sensational as the fragile, alert, and fascinating lead protagonist Jess. Admittedly, it does take a tiny amount of time for you to start getting into and relating to her as its heroine, but the possibility of the woman sticking around in your mind and sympathizing with her is quite high.
A rather random observation also hit me during its ninety nine minute running time: the thought of being stuck at sea, especially when you are quite far from land with seemingly no salvation in sight, is quite terrifying. Perhaps that's to blame on Robert Humphreys, the head of cinematography, who accentuates the negatives of the ocean surrounding our befuddled cast. It certainly doesn't help that composer Christian Henson (The Devil's Double) composes a very simple, quiet, creepy song that plays throughout a decent amount of Triangle, only adding to the curious, foreign atmosphere. Any motion picture that can make you feel claustrophobic, even when you're on a vehicle that has decks aplenty, has to be commended.
Even with a tendency to get swallowed up by moments of confusion and occasionally swerving into "mindfuck" territory (which is unavoidable given the subject matter that takes hold at the beginning of its second act), I can not tell you enough times that you should seek this out in some way, shape, or form. With apologies to 2007's entry The Signal, I believe that Triangle may have yanked the trophy for "most underrated" away from it with gusto, and after reminding myself of what else is to come this week, it is going to be even more difficult for something to repeat its own actions of such award thievery. If you're feeling up to watching it with a handicap (of sorts), Triangle is available in multipart videos on social networking sites such as Youtube. It can also be rented on streaming giant Amazon Prime, and can be purchased on DVD (Region 1) and Blu-Ray (Region 2) from various websites.
Tomorrow, we have to deal with.....*sigh* M. Night Shyamalan. Hopefully, it will be the first and last time he shall make an appearance on here.
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