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Blu-ray Review: Chris Smith’s ‘Triangle’
Playing a little catch up we’ve got David Harley’s review for Chris Smith’s (Severance, Creep) psychological thriller Triangle, which is now available on DVD and Blu-ray everywhere. Starring Melissa George (Turistas, Amityville Horror, 30 Days of Night), the film is a psychological thriller set inside the Bermuda Triangle.
Christopher Smith seems to get better and better with each film. Creep is essentially a reimagining of Raw Meat, albeit a more interesting take, even if it does drag a bit. Severance has several inspired comedic moments and death scenes and is a tad more fun, even if it too slows down a tad too much. With his latest feature, Triangle, Smith once again manages to outdo his last feature and actually made something that I can totally get into: a really violent and sometimes WTF-worthy Twilight Zone episode.
Melissa George stars as Jess, a stressed out mom who decides to take the day off and join her friend Greg (Michael Dorman) and a few others out on the high seas. Their relaxing day comes to a screeching halt when a huge storm sends their yacht off course and into the Bermuda Triangle. Struggling to stay afloat and alive, the group spots a seemingly abandoned cruise ship floating by and takes refuge in it. Of course, in true horror fashion, it’s not really abandoned and pretty soon after, the bodies start piling up.
Like Moon, the twist is revealed pretty early on and works similarly, with the main characters’ reaction to the shocks and surprises much more interesting than the audience’s. There are some genuinely tense moments, including one scene with a pile of bodies on the deck of the boat that`s definitely going to stick with anyone that watches it. As long as you can make it through the extremely typical first half-hour setup, the rest of the film is something that deserves your utmost attention, with a few “blink and you’ll miss it” plot points and revelations. If there’s one thing I can say about watching Triangle, it’s that you shouldn’t get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of it, otherwise you’ll be lost.
The film sets up its rules and plays by them for the most part – ANY film that covers this particular ground will have a few holes and unexplained moments – and since it requires your complete attention and demands repeat viewings, it has a sort of audience participation that few other flicks can pull off without being extremely gimmicky.
Unfortunately, the special features on the Blu-Ray are quite dire. Aside from a few trailers, the only actual extra is a cast and crew interview montage, which features a bunch of different interviews cobbled together – very poorly, I might add. The 1080p transfer is somewhat uneven, alternating between crisp and soft picture throughout. Although not the transfers fault, the clarity of the picture does make the cheap CGI look even cheaper. Considering the budget and how engaging the film is, it’s a minor grievance, even if it is somewhat jarring at times. The Dolby True HD track, on the other hand, is exceptional. Mixing is at the right levels, giving proper representation on the sound effect and soundtrack fronts.
Regardless of the forgettable extras, Triangle is definitely worth picking up on Blu-Ray or DVD, simply because it’s a great cerebral thriller, worthy of repeated viewings, dissections and late night discussions.
Film: 4/5
Blu-Ray: 2.5/5
There’s something really insidious, in a great way, about setting a horror story in a movie theater. It’s something filmmakers have known for decades, going back to The Blob and beyond, but it never fails to strike a chord because, in a way, it hits us exactly where we feel safest. Seeing a horror movie on the big screen, surrounded by like-minded moviegoers, is a communal experience, one in which everyone screams and laughs together. We are together, and therefore we are much less vulnerable, so when someone punctures that bubble of safety, it’s all the more frightening.
Matinee (also released as Midnight Matinee in some territories) is a movie that understands this from the jump, setting up a stunning opening kill that predates a similar sequence in Scream 2 by almost a full decade. A smart, layered, very stylish Canadian slasher released at the tail end of the 1980s, it’s one of those films that’s spent a lot of time in the dark even among the horror faithful (I’m willing to admit that I hadn’t seen it until recently). Now, a new Kino Cult Blu-ray release is out to change that, and it reveals a slasher essential that, while not perfect, has charm and style to spare.
Two years ago, the Paramount Theater in the small town of Halston closed its doors when, during the theater’s annual horror festival, a young moviegoer was murdered in his seat, mid-movie. Leads in the murder quickly dried up, and the case is cold enough now that the town barely talks about it anymore. Fortunately for local horror fans, that means the Paramount can open again in time for its Halloween horror festival, and they’ve got a hotshot producer (William B. Davis) in town for just such an occasion.
As the festival draws closer, the film introduces us to a variety of characters, including rebellious teenager Sherri (Beatrice Boepple), her boyfriend Lawrence (Jeff Schultz), her overbearing mother Marilyn (Gillian Barber), and the theater’s kindly owner, Earle (Don S. Davis), who’s just hoping he can run a business without more bloodshed. But someone clearly remembers what happened two years ago, and their violent streak is on a collision course with opening night.
Matinee has quite a few things going for it, but what stands out right away, and maintains a consistent grip right up through a wonderful crescendo in the third act, is the film’s visual style. Writer/Director Richard Martin, cinematographer Cyrus Block, and special effects wizard Bob Comer make great use of the film’s limited locations, giving the movie a charming small-town feel reminiscent of Halloween or The Blob while building a self-contained little world inside the theater itself that’ll remind you of films like Popcorn and Demons.
The colors are striking, the framing is clever, and the film clearly has a ball making references to all kinds of other horror cinema moments ranging from The Phantom of the Opera to Friday the 13th. The kills, while relatively sparing with gore, are delivered with style and appropriate tension, creating that sense of unease right in the middle of a place where we as movie fans should be comfortable: The movie theater. Along the way, the Paramount itself becomes a character, and this release definitely dials up its retro splendor.
The Blu-ray upgrade preserves the film’s attention to detail and ambitious cinematography, helping the colors to pop while never letting go of the texture and feel of a relatively low-budget horror film made in Canada in the 1980s. There’s a certain gauziness to many exploitation films of this era, that haloed light you get when the scene is perhaps overexposed just a little too much. It makes the film dreamlike even when it reaches for realism, and Kino Cult’s upgrade preserves that feeling. Throw in a smart script and a whodunit plot that leans heavily into the psychological details of each character, and you’ve got a winner.
There are a couple of things that stick out as slight issues here, including the lack of special features beyond an excellent commentary from film historians and Kino regulars Jason Pichonsky and Paul Corupe. The disc is quite reasonably priced, so it’s not a letdown economically speaking, but I’d love a deeper dive into the film and the Canadian slasher boom in general, particularly for a movie like this that seems to have faded from so many memories, including mine. The sound mix also has some issues, probably left over from previous releases, that might have you playing with your volume settings a little more than you’d like over the course of a 90-minute film, particularly when lines of ADR dialogue crop up.
These are minor concerns, though, and they do nothing to diminish the impact of Matinee, or the joy that’ll come from watching this film for the first time if you’re a slasher devotee in search of something new, or even someone who saw this movie way back when hoping to relive its glories. This is one of those slashers I’ll be talking about with fellow horrorphiles for a long time, and it’s because of this disc.
Matinee is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Cult.
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