Triangle (Review)

Triangle

Triangle (2010)

Directed by Christopher Smith

It's that time of year where I look at every body's Top 10 lists and watch the one's I think may make mine. So I saw that Triangle was on one of these lists and I gave it a shot.

It's no square.

Triangle delivers everything you want from a horror movie. Heightened Hitchcockian suspense, twizzler twists and turns and there is blood by the pint. For a movie created out of the UK/Australia that boasts a group of Aussies doing their best American accents, it delivers on everything you want in a horror thriller.

Your mind will trip out from the amount of WTF is in this film. So much head turning plot twists you may need to drink some Four Loko to get it all straight. It all comes full triangle and by the end you checking IMDB message boards and trivia to find out what's the what.

Well I did.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

When Jess sets sail on a yacht with a group of friends, she cannot shake the feeling that there is something wrong. Her suspicions are realized when the yacht hits a storm and the group is forced to board a passing ocean liner to get to safety, a ship Jess is convinced she's been on before. The ship appears deserted, the clock on board has stopped, but they are not alone... Someone is intent on hunting them down, one by one. And Jess unknowingly holds the key to end the terror.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

This review won't be that long because if I explained what's going on it would give away tons of good stuff. Like all movies like Inception, Sixth Sense, The Others you have to pay close attention to get the clues sprinkled throughout. But the film gets into the creamy filling quite quickly. Jess (Melissa George) and her friends go yachting, big storm, encounter strange ship. Spooky strange things happen on the ship.

SLIGHT SPOILERS below...

So we get into weird time travel mode and things get kooky doubly as they investigate the ship. Our crew gets bloodied and shot at and everything seems to revolve around Jess. The best comparison to Triangle is the low budget brilliant Timecrimes which I never reviewed because my head hurt after watching that awesomeness. I would say Triangle is a horror version of Timecrimes.
END SLIGHT SPOILERS

The performance of Melissa George is solid. She plays her part well evolving her character into different iterations. The rest of the cast are just stand ins to the reveals we see. Smith who directed the uber awesome Severance cleverly employs the stand by suspense techniques with Kubrick's The Shining and Hitchcock flicks. There's talk of mythology scattered throughout as the film creates its own. Sure there may be BIG plotholes and logic questions. Even I started questioning if our main hottie Jess did this or that, her dilemma would get resolved but I decided to go with it. When your watching a fantastico time triangle, you just have to shut down the old cerebral CPU.

The funny thing about Triangle is when you think it's over, it keeps hitting you with more crazy WTF.

Suffice it to say Triangle is the one flick I've seen this year that had me Wikipedia-ing, Googling and IMDB-ing after I saw it. I enjoyed the film but wanted to understand it completely. There is always one film a year that makes my Top 10 list that has me hitting the message boards to get some answers. That makes you think minutes, hours, days and months after you've seen it. I like seeing those films (though in small quantities).

Triangle tries to out clever you and it succeeds. You want a horror thriller to challenge you, make you really try hard to find out what's going on. As the ending approached I had my theories and I kinda knew what was going to happen. You can see the cliche coming but it's all good. You want to see THAT ENDING. The one you feel is coming.

Triangle does just that. It's definitely going to make my Top 10 List for 2010.

It's that time of year where I look at every body's Top 10 lists and watch the one's I think may make mine. So I saw that Triangle was on one of these lists and I gave it a shot.

It's no square.

Oh oh. Fuck me.

Gore-ipedia

Shotgun trauma
Head trauma
Slice and dice

Nude-ipedia

Melissa George for an hour and change is in a tight white tank top and Daisy Dukes. Yum.

WTF moment

A pile of dead bodies....say what?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

One of the year's best horror films you never heard of. Its out on DVD and probably on Netflix as well. One of the year's best....ARGHHHHH I better stop writing now.

The Vitals

• Buy it at Amazon
  

Rating:

Categories: 2010 horror dvd, 2010 horror movies, melissa george, severance, time travel, timecrimes, triangle, twilight zone

The WTF List: The Box

Oh this is going to be an interesting WTF List. Why? Because as a Richard Kelly fan (I absolutely loved Donnie Darko and hated Southland Tales) I was totally pulled in so many different directions wit this flick.

It's 2 freakin hours and I had seen the episode called "Button, Button" on the new Twilight Zone. I posted up the trailerand the episode a while back. So I knew there was a kinda twisty twist in here. But its all the rest of the confusion that gets to you. It's the most understandable of all the Richard Kelly flicks yet the most illogical and the most confusing.

If you've seen it, you know what I mean. If you haven't, well this is just a list of random thoughts and mumbo jumbo after having seen it.

So let's get to the WTF list shall we? (spoilers obviously)

1.) It's 1976! Why? Because 1 million dollars is alot of money in 1976!
2.) Cameron Diaz can't do a Southern accent..its like a shrieking noise on the subway
3.) Frank Langella is missing half his face because well he looks more V like
4.) They get The Box and get the offer from Steward. Push the button and get (cue Dr. Evil voice) "1 million dollars" but somebody dies that you DON'T know...(ahem pay attention!).
5.) Push the button! Push the button! Push the button! Push the button! Push the button!
6.) Don't push the button! Don't push the button! Don't push the button! Don't push the button!
7.) Push the button! Push the button! Push the button! Push the button! Push the button!
8.) Don't push the button! Don't push the button! Don't push the button! Don't push the button!
9.) Well she pushed the button which of course had to happen or there wouldn't be a movie right? I mean what would happen if she didn't? Would we watch a flick where Cameron Diaz went to work, has to choose b/w 2 different guys and hilarity ensues (like all her chick flick movies)
10.) Well some waiter dude is acting all creepy, which prompted me to get a juice box
11.) Yay for philosophical quotes and Arthur C. Clarke references
12.) Yup. The Box has elements of Body Snatchers for no apparent reason
13.) Gratuitous running in a library
14.) My theory is proved true of what The Box really is for and whose behind it (about 45 or so minutes in)
15.) Pick #2! OMG why is this dude suspended with water? Thank you Richard Kelly for making shit up
16.) There is a guy dressed up as Santa ringing a bell
17.) Can you believe this 10 page short which resulted in this half hour long Twilight Zone episode made this movie 2 freakin hours long?
18.) I'm sure there's a message by Kelly in this movie, damn if I care at this point.
19.) Well now our couple has to make a choice...Hellen Keller or shoot Cameron Diaz. Hahahaha. I've been hoping they we're going to shoot Cameron Diaz since the beginning of the movie. Shoot away!
20.) Simultaneous button pushing equals crazy logic problems with this entire movie!

I decided to peruse the IMDB message boards after watching this and everybody was:

A.) Confused
B.) Didn't get it at all
C.) Hated the movie
D.) Loved the movie
E.) Bashed Kelly
F.) Praised Kelly

But the best part of reading these discussions is hearing about the logic problems of the ending.
It does have some of the best "well I didn't think of that" moments. If you haven't seen this flick, LOOK AWAY!

• If the lady at the end doesn't push the button, would that still result in Cameron Diaz dying?
• Also, the fact that aliens are behind this test to see if humanity is worth saving or becomes extinct, well this test is really a shitty way of determining that.
  

What did you guys think?

Categories: button button, cameron diaz, richard kelly, southland tales, The Box, the box trailer, twilight zone

The Wonderful Crapiness of Chiller TV

As a Time Warner Cable inmate, I actually never knew this channel existed. I never had Direct TV so when this channel launched I was clueless. But as I was talking to Insano Steve as we tried to find Versus on both our satellite and cable systems, I soon stumbled upon Chiller.

Who let the wondercrapness out!?! Woot! Woot!

Seems I've been missing out on all the crapawesomeness of Chiller.

John Carpenter's Vampires! Vampires: The Turning! Bloodrayne! Sleepwalkers! Tales from the Crypt:Demon Knight and Bordello of Blood! Tales from the Hood!

WTF!??! I've missed out on all this craptastic coolshitty flicks!

And megahorriblegood TV series air on Chiller TV too. Can you freakin believe it? I've missed out on such classics as:

Millenium! Hex! Friday the 13th: The Series! The Embraced! and Freakylinks!!! Yes Freakylinks!

OK sarcasm aside, this is an actual shock to my jaded system. I honestly never heard of this channel. Aside from The Horror Channel, I thought an actual horror TV channel were myths and urban legends. I'm really not sure what to make of this. Are the movies edited or uncut? Do they show the complete seasons of these TV shows? Is Twilight Zone on all the time?

Whose actually watched something on this channel? C'mon horror guys and gals, confess already. Have you actually watched this channel?

On Direct TV its channel 257.
On Dish Network its channel 199.
On Time Warner Cable its channel 102.

There tagline says "Dare to Watch". Hmm I'll take that challenge. OMG! They show Twin Peaks. I am now hooked on this craptastic channel.

Categories: 2009 horror dvd, 2009 horror movies, chiller tv, twilight zone

The Box Trailer and Twilight Zone "Button, Button" Episode

Richard Kelly (director of Donnie Darko and Southland Tales) is back and doing his best M. Knight Shyamalan impersonation. With The Box, he takes a short story by Richard Matheson which was in turn, turned into an episode called "Button, Button" on the new Twilight Zone in 1986.

Starring Cameron Diaz, the story is an interesting premise or a load of twisty badness. You decide. You are the experiment.

A small wooden box arrives on the doorstep of a married couple, who open it and become instantly wealthy. Little do they realize that opening the box also kills someone they do not know ...

I love Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko but Southland was scratch your eyeballs bad. So who knows about this one.

Would you push the button?

Fuck yeah I would. Of course you all can see the twist coming a thousand light years away but fuck it, it's a million dollars.

Check out the trailer below.





If you want to be spoiled way ahead of the October 30th 2009 release date, you can watch the Twilight Zone episode "Button, Button" below. Hell, I did.

"Button, Button" Part 1






"Button, Button" Part 2








Tags:
the box, the box trailer , richard kelly , button button twilight zone, twilight zone, cameron diaz,

Categories: button button, cameron diaz, richard kelly, The Box, the box trailer, twilight zone