Thursday, October 28, 2010

Review: Triangle

Triangle
Dir. Christopher Smith
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 98mins

I watched Christopher Smith's Triangle last night. I normally wouldn't have bothered with a film such as this if it weren't for the fact that it was filmed in Australia and that it features a collection of Australian actors that have been watchable in the past. That it had actually received some quite impressive reviews was something I only discovered after the fact. Impressive reviews for a movie that made a pittance at the box office and went direct-to-DVD in most places. Why this didn't get more of a push by its distributor is not something I am going to pretend to know, but I do know that by film's end I was quite stunned at what I had just watched. Triangle is a taut, emotionally riveting, effective and - best of all - surprising horror chiller.

I can't say I was expecting much, and after the first 15 minutes or so my expectations were being met. So much so that when a mate sent me a text message asking what I was doing I replied "watching a quote unquote scary movie." Ouch. I have no qualms in admitting that I was judging Triangle far too prematurely. I knew the film was of the twisty variety - it's hard to ignore when the marketing features its star Melissa George looking at a reflection of herself as a hooded gun-toter - but the initial passages of this movie really don't tell us anything about where the film is going. Triangle is one movie in which I can quite positively say I had no idea at all where it was going. There's no hint within the opening passages that even suggest the quietly devastating places it visits outside of Melissa George's performance, and even that comes off as affected more than anything else. Even once the first twist occurs (and there's a lot of them!) and I thought it was going one way, it piled another twist on top of that and went somewhere else. And then just for giggles it threw on more twists and then the final act is another divergence and, surprisingly, made everything come full circle and make perfect sense. Well, "perfect sense" in its own universe, but sense nonetheless.

To tell you the plot is both ridiculous and unnecessary. Ridiculous because, well, there really isn't much of one until we start getting into spoiler territory (and bigger spoilers than the general "is she going insane" stuff that the marketing and DVD back cover blurb makes obvious), and unnecessary because the plot is entirely superfluous to your experience of the movie. You're either going to get swept up (pun unintended) or you'll balk at the absurdity of it all. If you must know though, it's about a group of good looking people taking a sailing sojourn. Needless to say, bad shit happens and they end up on an ocean liner that appears to be deserted. Oh my, never saw that before! However, it's like Ghost Ship, but, ya know, not terrible and hackish.


The word I keep coming back to is "impressive". You don't see plotting and structure like this very often in modern day horror titles, especially ones that could have so easily fallen back on the good ol' Bermuda Triangle trope that its title seems to suggest it's going to do. If you're paying attention from the opening shot to the very last then I am sure you will be able to make heads and tails of it all in a general sort of way. Much like Christopher Nolan's Inception, Triangle balances it's multiple levels of reality/dream/fantasy and - dare I say - actually does a better job of it than Nolan's sci-fi blockbuster. Inception is the better film thanks to its technical prowess, scope and budgetary bravery, but let's not deny Triangle its plaudits. Watching this movie with an open mind is a fascinating experience, trying to slot all the pieces of the puzzle together and figure out where everyone sits in the grand scheme of the film's architecture. It's something that can only be attempted once the credits are rolling since Smith continues to throw spanners and wrenches and whatever other work shed tools he can find into the mix. There's even a scene in a tool shed where Melissa George pulls out another implement for use!


The film is, to be really reductive about everything, about reflections. How we look at ourselves, what fates we think we deserve for our misdeeds and the levels to which we will go to try and forgive ourselves for our sins. God may be able to forgive if we prey hard enough and go to whatever Sunday traditions he (or she!) sees fit, but will we ever be able to erase the memories from our own mind? Can we ever truly forgive ourselves? Even if it means destroying our former selves, we can't ever truly escape, can we?

This idea about reflections is most definitely shoved in audiences faces due to Smith and his cinematographer Robert Humphreys. Melissa George is routinely filmed looking at mirrors or having her image bounce off of a shiny surface. I lost count of the number of times I noticed it, actually, and at one point I wanted to scream "I GET IT!" Yes, her personality is fracturing, yes she's looking at her image, but is she truly herself? I GET IT! I took some screencaps just to prove it. There were more, probably, but lost track.




Melinda Doring's production design should be praised. Sure, the references to Kubrick's The Shining are so obvious that a cruise ship couldn't miss them if they were floating in the ocean, but that's part of the charm. The corridors of the cruise ship, the creepiness of these 1920s ballrooms and theatres plus the sunny exteriors of the deck. And as far as continuity goes, it does a surprisingly adept job at keeping track of all the pools of blood, bloodied hand prints, piles of bodies (love that shot of Rachael Carpani discovering her corpse multiplied) and fractured mirrors. It's a shame the visual effects aren't up to scratch, since that's the only aspect that really truly could have been improved to match the rather stellar achievements elsewhere.

Melissa George has never been an actress I've found all that engaging, to tell you the truth. Serviceable, but not much more and yet here in Triangle she gets quite a bit to chew on and handles it with aplomb. I wasn't enjoying her damaged sad sack routine in the earlier passages of the film, but once you figure out what the film is doing (which, as I've said, isn't until very late in the picture) I definitely got it. And that shot of her towards film's end where... well, you know the one? Obviously Smith's talent has something to do with that, but as a culmination of everything George had been doing up until then she's partially responsible for its shock value. I wasn't expecting it and I actually gasped. If this blog is still running in ten years and I do another Design of the Decade is a scene that will surely rank somewhere on there.

Don't look at the images below if you intend on sitting down to watch Triangle. They're very much SPOILER territory... although, even then, when you don't know the context with which they appear it doesn't seem like anything of the sort.







End of image spoilers, feel free to keep reading!

In fact, that entire end passage had me sitting there with my mouth agog. The brutal position it showed of a family deeply resentful of a child with special needs, the brutally sudden murder, George's willingness to be such a complete and utter monster (think of it as Mo'Nique in Precious condensed to a brief 2 minute sequence!), the car crash and the "uh huh!" moment that follows... it's all the sort of thing that make me sit up and wish more movies could be like this. Triangle is 90 minutes long and not a single moment of it is wasted. It is a captivating and strong, scary movie that I'd recommend to anyone who wishes horror films were braver and sticky on the brain. It's a small film, for sure, but one that impressed with craftsmanship, complexity, intelligence and ingenuity. B+

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 30 of Scream (1:21:31-1:24:13)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!



SCENE 30
Length: 2min 42secs
Primary Characters: Gale Weathers, Deputy Dewey and Randy Meeks
Pop Culture References:
  • Halloween (It continues to be played on the TV)


It's this very scene that makes me chuckle with wonder at what Courteney Cox's Friends cast members must have thought of the movie she ha spent her summer vacation making. I like to imagine everyone of the cast returning from their summer vacations and discussing what they did; someone probably holidayed in the Caribbean or the French Riviera while others made failed attempts at capitalising on their newfound TV fame with a dull romantic comedy and then Courteney would have been there saying how she made a horror movie called Scream in which she had to run around from a masked killer who was murdering teenagers. And then she would've told them about the actor she met on the set... :(


I love looking at Gale run in this little shot as she wears her skirt and her heels.


I guess Dewey was very sure that the killer was inside the house, since he just left Gale to run around by herself. This shot kinda feels like a shot from Halloween, which is apt since by this stage the film was using John Carpenter's Scream score outright for its own usage.


I actually think this moment works particularly well. We all know that Halloween is playing in the house, but Craven and co have ramped the tension up so much with that last chase sequence that it's easy to forget and to think the sound coming from the TV is real. As fake scares go, it is certainly a bit better and more original than a cat jumping out from a shadow.











My favourite shots from this ensemble of images are shots #3, #4 and #7. Love the look of "oh shit, where is Kenny?" on Gale's face in that third shot, the imagery of her Hollywood shoots surrounded by pooling blood in the forth and, well, who doesn't love that seventh shot with the blood on the windscreen wipers. I do find it amusing that Gale tried to wipe the blood away from inside the windshield as if it was condensation or something like that.

Poor Kenny though. I like that Stu, in killer mode, was so proud of his unsuspecting kill on Kenny that he decided to take time out of stalking his victims (he easily could have just gone straight back inside the house and given Randy the ol' stabby stabby salute through the skull like he intended before he heard Sidney screaming (which, by the way, Randy did not hear, and yet there he is?) to prop him up on the news van to be violently discovered by someone. Throat slashing just isn't enough!


For some reason this specific shot seems very unfamiliar to me. Like, I've watched this films hundreds of times so I have obviously seen it, but until I screencapped it it had never really registered with me. I like how Randy is there trying to get up and figure out what is going on.


"Oh god, Kenny I'm sorry, but get off my fucking windshield!"

Love this line and Cox's reading of it. It's that wink of comedy and yet it feels so natural and organic. I mean, it would be kinda annoying to have a big ol' dead man on your windshield as you're trying to escape from a serial killer.






Okay, and now I have to call "Shenanigans!" on writer Kevin Williamson. I don't understand this moment. Gale is trying to escape, sees a bloodied Sidney (where that blood came from, I'm not sure, since the very last moment we saw her running away from the killer in the news van she did not have as much blood on her face!), and swerves to avoid her. Gale then goes careening off the road and into a tree, yet what does Sidney do? She runs back towards the house? That doesn't make any sense! You'd think you would try to go get whoever it was and try to escape together.

Furthermore, and this pertains to a later sequence, but we'll discuss it now, when Stu and Billy are surprised by Gale in the kitchen showdown they say she "looked dead" (in a manner of speaking) and yet... how? I've never understood that. The killer wasn't following Gale in her van (as far as we're aware) and the only one who saw her take the van into the bushes was Sidney. It's always confused me and it's the only plot hole that I can find in the first two movies that genuinely bugs me every time I watch them.

Can someone provide a tangible reason for any of this? Please?!?


Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Smile for the Camera

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 29 of Scream (1:16:06-1:21:30)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!


SCENE 29
Length: 5min 24secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott, Ghostface, Billy Loomis, Randy Meeks and Kenny the Cameraman
Pop Culture References:
  • Halloween (Randy continues to watch it and the chase sequence resembles it in some ways)
  • The Spiral Staircase (some say the way Sidney bangs on the attic window is identical to this movie)


This scene is title "The Chase" on the menu screen and, well, that's what it is. I think this is one of the best chase scenes of its kind; it covers so much ground and space and really just kicks everything up a notch with everybody getting their part. Well, except Stu who, in retrospect, was probably the only feasible suspect at this point alongside Sidney's father.


The way Craven constantly puts telephones in the frame is great, isn't it? The audience sees one and is immediately on guard for terror. Watching the Scream 4 trailer this past week (over and over again) and I can't tell you how happy I was to hear and see a good ol' fashioned landline phone. Scream 3, if I remember correctly, relied too much on mobiles and while I am sure Scream 4 will have its fair share of them (iPhones, as also seen in the trailer) it was just refreshing to see traditional phones as well. Random observation, I know...















I'd like to be all smart and say that I figured out that Billy was the killer during this sequence (because it's so obvious just looking at these images,) but I wasn't. I remember cottoning on to it during the staircase sequence, but we'll get to that later. As for now... Billy?

My favourite shot is the second last one where Billy reaches out to Sidney and the way it's framed makes it appear that their hands are touching in what Sidney would have thought of as one last embrace. Of course, we all know better, don't we? Yup!


I have gone on and on about the art direction of Scream, but Stu's house is a marvel all its own. I'm not even sure how the design of this house makes sense with the places Ghostface emerges from at times, and this moment is an example of that.


One of my favourite shots. Don't ask me why, it just is.



I like Scary Movie. It doesn't work as a spoof so much because, well, Scream kinda already is one, but I still think it's funny and has some great gags (the sequels, not so much). However, one thing that it did have the smartness to mock was the way the Scream killer, at least in the original, is a big ol' klutz that gets hit by a lot! I know they couldn't do it due to the need for surprise, but it's amazing Billy and Stu didn't have big welts before the final confrontation. Also, I remember finding Anna Faris' run, where she flails her arms around like Neve Campbell does here, to be hilarious. Oh, to be 15 again...


I think this shot is good at giving a better look at the layout of the property, but I find it humourous that Gale and Kenny were trying to be inconspicuous and yet the van is really actually quite close and out in the open for anyone to see.



That second shot is an incredible one, don't you think? It's that shot that makes me think they definitely modelled it a bit on Psycho with the focus being on one little upstairs window.






We briefly saw that boat earlier in the movie, so we know what's coming. Meanwhile, cue the "looking back to where you were only to discover the killer is no longer there!" cliche being roundly mocked. It's always struck me as such a silly thing as well. Like, what are the odds that the killer moved?



I'm glad they showed Sidney discovering Tatum, it again just adds another dimension to her plight. I also like how this movie parallels the moment in Halloween that Randy is watching inside.

Speaking of which...


"Watch out Jamie, you know he's around."

No, you watch out Jamie!


Oh Kenny! While everyone else is running around getting murdered or stalked or running about trying to stop people being murdered or stalked, you're there dozing away in your van after pigging out on Doritos. And that's why we love you!







And with that we say goodbye to Kenny to Cameraman (well, we see him again very soon, but he's hardly the same Kenny we all came to know and love, is he?)

Lastly, note how in that second last shot he points to an exit that Sidney can use at the back of the van? That's one of the many shots that could go unnoticed, but I really like it. Bless Kenny the Cameraman, just trying to earn a buck and as his last act on this Earth he helps poor Sidney Prescott out. You will be missed.

Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28