Movies
Triangle (V)
“Cyclic in nature, the script twists and turns and doubles back on itself, weaving a complex web of a plotline, but it often leads off down blind alleys which aren’t fully resolved, Smith favouring mood and effect over logical transparency, and this is where audiences’ responses to the film will differ.”
The title for writer/director Chris Smith’s third feature is a little misleading, the poster depicting a ship under the title Triangle suggesting a Bermuda locale of some sort, but this is an erroneous assumption, much in the same way the film itself, a thriller full to the brim with twists and turns, is really not quite what it initially appears to be either.
Melissa George is Jess, a stressed out young mother of an autistic child who ventures out into the Atlantic with some friends aboard a small yacht for a bit of rest and relaxation. When a freak storm capsizes their vessel though, they are left clinging to its upturned hull until the SS Aeolus, a colossal passenger ship, sails into view. Thinking they have been saved, they climb aboard only to find it empty, not a soul in sight, save that is for a mysterious figure shrouded in black that Jess sees onboard, who’s armed with a shotgun, and that nagging feeling that she has been on the ship before.
What plays out is a far cry from Smith’s earlier features as he eschews the claret-soaked stylings of Creep and the tongue-in-cheek gags of Severance for an altogether much more sombre, mature and restrained approach. As the film unfolds, realities, and time, unravel as Jess has to face, quite literally, herself and the consequences of her actions as her and her friends come under attack. Smith builds the suspense well and orchestrates a foreboding sense of dread and terror, as well as serving up some decidedly unsettling scenes, and he is helped in no small part by some sterling production design work which renders the Aeolus a nightmarish maze of corridors and stifling, empty rooms. Taking its cues from The Shining in this department, amongst others, the film takes place during the day with the horror of events presented in glistening sunlight as opposed to under the mask of shadows, and it’s anchored by an impressive central performance by George who has a tall task portraying a character who is clearly not sound of mind. Despite this, Triangle has a tendency to lose sense of its own direction somewhat.
Cyclic in nature, the script twists and turns and doubles back on itself, weaving a complex web of a plotline, but it often leads off down blind alleys which aren’t fully resolved, Smith favouring mood and effect over logical transparency, and this is where audiences’ responses to the film will differ. It could be that the search for a conclusive and final resolution to all events will frustrate some, or it could be, as Smith intended, that it is the journey itself that is the resolution, the emotions experienced and the understanding of them achieved which is the film’s purpose. Flawed in places, yet exceptionally well crafted and thoroughly effective, Triangle is a film to enjoy, and to puzzle over a little bit too.
Check out Screenjabber.com for full coverage of FrightFest 2009.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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