In horror, there are worse things lurking in the water than you might think.
Nautical horror, as specific as it might sound, has a few great entries into its canon – Dangerous Animals, Deep Blue Sea, Jaws, that one great episode of The X-Files, hell, even Ghost Ship is a pretty good time. But Triangle (2009) takes the horror a step further than just being out in the middle of the ocean with something horrible on your tail – it throws in a time-loop that makes things even more claustrophobic, and what it delivers is a genuinely unsettling and distinct slice of late-noughties brilliance.
Directed by Christopher Smith, Triangle, on the surface, looks like a pretty standard piece of watery horror fare: single mother Jess (Melissa George) takes a well-earned day of relaxation, as she embarks on a boating trip with her friends. But, just like all my attempts at having a good time, it soon turns bleak as a storm forces the group on to an abandoned cruise liner where a mysterious killer is stalking them for reasons unknown.
And look, as a stalk-and-slash film alone, Triangle is pretty great – Smith knows how to build an atmosphere, and the winding corridors and faded grandeur of the cruise ship makes for a unique backdrop. That sprawling ocean setting lends the movie a sense of hopelessness that you just don’t get in a suburban slasher flick, and the cast is solid enough at turning the characters into a group you can’t wait to see get the chop – proverbial or otherwise.
But Triangle doesn’t just rest on some slasher laurels, no – it switches things up with the reveal of a time-loop that has already put this friend group through the ringer over and over again. Smith was inspired by the myth of Sisiyphus in the conception of Triangle, and I think that sense of complete helplessness in the face of endless repetition is something he captures brilliantly. There are a few truly unsettling images in the movie that spring from the loop, a pile of the same woman’s corpses, a stack of dead seagulls by the side of the road – and the seemingly-random time fluctuations leave you on even more uneven footing as a viewer, building this confusing, oppressive feel that only starts to unravel as the movie goes on.
And in the middle of this all is Jess – Melissa George should have been a megastar based on this performance alone, let me tell you, and I’m still surprised to see it as overlooked as it is today. Jess is a fascinating character, one who is unravelled with great care over the course of the film’s runtime; it’s not until the film’s close that we really understand the kind of person she is and the relationship she has with her son, but George manages to imbue the character with flashes of her real self that come out under the stress of the time-loop. Like Jess, we as an audience only really come to contextualise everything in retrospect, and it’s a supremely satisfying character arc that lifts the movie above its gimmick and into downright brilliance.
Triangle is a complex movie that never gets waterlogged in its own ambition – when it comes to horror-at-sea, it’s still one of the best. I’d love to hear your take on it in the comments below, and please feel free to share your favourite boat-centric scary movies to add to my collection!
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By Lou MacGregor
(header image via ScreenAge Wasteland)
No But Listen 