| Title | The golden age of horror: Triangle (2009) |
| Author | Chris Hornbostel and Bill Cunningham |
| Posted in | Features |
| When | October 22, 2014 |
Bill: I can't possibly discuss the Australian film Triangle without bringing up Timecrimes, a Spanish sci fi/thriller made two years earlier in 2007..
Read the full articleOh man, I love Carnival of Souls. Maybe I would like this movie.
In Carnival of Souls, the actress doesn't have you saying "A ha!" right from the start, though. That's the bummer here. Everything is so telegraphed, and it feels like it depends on surprise.
I think you guys are a bit too harsh on it, even though ultimately the film is a failure for me too. I definitely don't think it's terrible, though, I just think it falls short of what it's trying to achieve, and I get the sense you don't agree with me on what it's trying to achieve. For me the ambiguity early on as to whether it's a supernatural thriller or a time travel film is deliberate. It leads you in with blatant Dead Calm/Shining nods, then smacks you in the face with (I guess, I haven't seen it) Carnival of Souls. I enjoyed the bait and switch (though it was heavily telegraphed - particularly the crazy electrical storm which wasn't supposed to be remotely realistic. My problem with the film (weak characters aside) was that the causal loop didn't work, even though the film-maker thought it did, or at least tried to portray it as working by showing the perspectives of the "different" Jesses. I don't agree with Chris that one character is "outside" the loop, at least not deliberately. The whole point of the narrative structure to me is trying to establish that she's inside the loop. That's why you have all the piles of dead bodies etc.
So where's the pile of dead bodies in the theater? Or the pile of dead Victors in the ballroom? Trying to make sense of the time loop here won't work, because it doesn't make any sense.
I LOVED the storm in this, by the way. Not realistic at all, but cool-looking nonetheless. That worked just fine for me, and I thought was some striking use of CG effects.
To be fair, I'm not a fan of the "soul in purgatory" genre, as I mentioned. I was probably a bit too harsh in light of that.
And you can't give me a haunted ship and then take it away from me!!! What kind of heartless bastard does such a thing!?
Also, if the human head is that easy to puncture, why aren't people dying on an hourly basis from putting on their hats too roughly? Seriously, she backs the guy up into an oddly placed coat rack hook and he gets a lobotomy? Why aren't we, as a nation, focusing more attention on oddly placed coat rack hooks in light of this public health threat???
We're too worried about double-barrel sniper shotguns.
Definitely see Timecrimes. But I do think Triangle is well worth watching as well, and I think I have a particular soft spot for it because it's one of those movies that I just happened to run across on Netflix and think "huh, I guess I'll give this a go because, I mean, why not?" and it turned out to be a lot more ambitious and interesting than the shitty generic horror movie cover would suggest. And stuff like those piles of corpses are, I think, a place most other time loop movies don't go.
I agree with you about the piles of corpses thing. I wish that Chris Smith had figured out a way to make that organically a piece of the movie without fudging the rest, because that's a tremendous and amazing reveal.
Watched this because I love Melissa George but she did make this stressful to watch. On the other hand I can't think of another way she could have done it. The missing bodies in the theatre could have been explained by a Jess #3 disposing of them. After all we never see the Jess that successfully breaks the inner loops to get off the ship and wake on the beach in the outermost time loop.
I really liked this film and while I'm not sure about Aeolus the Sisyphis reference was totally pertinent. Cab driver could have been creepier I agree.
This film is much more like Mulholland Drive than Timecrimes.
It just seemed like he had some great ideas (the ship, the pile of corpses, etc.) and then abandoned them for the easier story about a soul lost in purgatory.
Mulholland Drive isn't even like Mulholland Drive, let alone Triangle. ;)
The reason I brought up Timecrimes a few times is because Triangle spends about two thirds of its run time making you think it's a time travel film in that vein. It's only in the last third that you get dragged into your new reality.
