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Triangle
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - First Look Studios Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (26th January 2010). |
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The Film
 Budget horror is the ultimate proof of concept genre. Big budget films can be visually mind-blowing, bring in the best of the best artists, or just be great big wastes of money. But with a movie made under $15 million, it’s make or break for a great idea that can push it beyond budgetary restrictions or just look and feel cheap. In the case of horror, you have the standout microbudget movies like “Blair Witch Project” (1999) or “Paranormal Activity” (2007) that make huge bank at the box office just because of how creepy and interesting they make their movies. In the low teens though you get a big hit or miss factor as you can get movies made for the sake of being cheap or the passions that got a bit more funding. With “Triangle” (2009) you get a well produced movie with a few weak spots, but above all a great “Twilight Zone” (1959-1964) premise that is well orchestrated. Starting out in Florida, Jess (Melissa George) is a single mother with an autistic son, working in a diner trying to support his needs and their family. One Saturday she is invited on a yacht cruise with a man she met at a diner, Greg (Michael Dorman) while her son is at school. Acting oddly when she boards and having strange dreams along the way, Jess is a bit stand off-ish with the others on the cruise, but Greg has obviously taken a liking to her. Problems hit when the boat suddenly receives a mysterious distress call and finds itself in the middle of a huge storm, overturning the boat, knocking out the rudder. The group fortunately finds a mysterious cruise ship floating out of nowhere after the storm has settled, taking shelter in the abandoned boat until they are attacked by a mysterious killer. Consider this a spoiler warning (do not read on plot points revealed) just in case, because the twists and turns of this movie are really what make the ride enjoyable. What Jess discovers is that she is the mysterious killer on the boat, taking out the rest of her new friends one by one for reasons unknown even to her. Yet unlike similar movies, the twist goes above and beyond the protagonist=killer twist. It really operates as a gorier, more suspenseful episode of "The Twilight Zone" where there’s some odd twist that traps the main character finds themselves in and a conflicting message of fate and choice. Spoilers off now, just so I can give full credit to writer/director Christopher Smith who manages to pull it off masterfully with a well constructed and well presented piece. The movie has an almost David Lynch feeling of weird, mixed between bizarre dreams and visions that really take the viewer out of place and are disorienting enough to make things interesting. It’s more clear cut than a Lynch movie, but this change of pace for a director whose last project was a horror comedy that I’ve heard called “The Office” (British, 2001-2003) but awesomely gory. And while there’s some good use of blood and gore in the movie, it’s the weirdness and the twists that really bring me into the film. And for the most part the actors pull all of the weirdness and twists off well. Apparently Australians are the best at being from the United States, or at least the cheapest, since the majority of the supposedly Floridian cast is Australian, but they still do a good job and only let their intonations switch rarely. Melissa George does a great job of carrying the film, pulling the load for the entire film with such a character centric script. Overall “Triangle” is a quality example of good horror on the (relatively) cheap. There are some slips in budget like a few green screen foibles or off looking effects, but honestly it’s such a sweet idea for a story, I’m completely entertained the entire way through. These slips are almost a bit more charming for me, being raised off of the 90’s "The Outer Limits" (1995-2002) that may have sported some inconsistent, and in retrospect terrible, effects work, yet somehow never ceased to entertain me.
Video
With the increasing quality of lower budget HD cameras, movies like "Triangle" end up looking better than I would expect, presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio 1080p 24/fps with AVC MPEG-4 compression encoding at about 25 Mbps. The film has a great crispness and color in the visual imagery, along with a brightness that helps to add to the eeriness of the film. There are no real glitches in the video at all, except with a few obvious composite shots, but still the amount of practical effects and good production of the film helps add to the experience.
Audio
But of course to help set the weird tone, you need a good soundtrack and the English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixed at 48kHz/24-bit track brings out the audio really well. The soft piano score and the weird vocals move well in the sound production and the ambient noises of the sea or inside the ship all function well. The film is well mixed together and executes well on all counts in terms of audio, making for a wonderfully well rounded film that I genuinely enjoyed. There’s only an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround audio track in addition, with English for the hearing impaired and Spanish subtitles as well.
Extras
The only real let down of “Triangle” was the dramatic lack of special features, obviously just ripped from the DVD rather than in HD due to the often apparent interlacing on the single featurette and there are also some bonus trailer. “Cast & Crew Interviews” featurette which runs a paltry 5 minutes and 59 seconds, though does a good job of covering most of the ground for the film. Director Smith and producer Jason Newmark talk about the idea behind-the-film, as well as brief jaunts into the actors talking about their characters or producer Julie Baines talking about the production design of the film, with a few behind scenes shots mixed in with it. It’s nice enough and brief, but with a movie I liked this much I wanted so much more, like a commentary or a full behind-the-scenes documentary, to really talk about the movie. Bonus trailers are for: - “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” runs for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. - “The Donner Party” runs for 1 minute and 4 seconds. - “Lost City Raiders” runs for 1 minute and 4 seconds.
Overall
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