Today is March 375th 2020, and I marked it by watching a time-loop movie. I’d watched Triangle before, soon after it came out, and it holds up pretty well. It’s a time-loop horror with a incredible turn half way through the film which is given away by the trailer. One of my favourite shots in horror. Spoilers follow.
Statistics
- Length of first iteration: 21 minutes
- Reset point: leaving the ship (ish)
- Fidelity of loop: traces of past loops remain
- Exit from the loop: there is no escape
This film contains a brilliantly-structured series of concurrent loops. Main character Jess takes a day off from caring for her autistic son, setting out on her friend Greg’s yacht Triangle with a group of his friends. The boat runs into an unexpected storm and is capsized. A huge ship, the Aeolus turns up and the survivors board only to find it empty.
I knew that Aeolus was a wind God, but I missed that he was the father of Sisyphus. Fortunately one of the characters pointed this out. They may have been good at trivia but they were unable to escape their grisly fate.
Ships are great settings for horror films! All those long corridors and dark engine rooms! Flurries of seagulls scavenging the corpses! Time loops are also particularly suited for horror and there are several such films to come. Here, the accumulation of loops adds to the dread. This is not my favourite time loop, but it’s probably the best use of the concept so far. It doesn’t make perfect sense, with a couple of things that are done for effect, but this is a good film. The IMDB trailer even suggests a mythical symbolism explaining why this time loop happens.
Improvised masks made from sacks: is it really that easy to keep the eye-holes in place? I guarantee, if I tried to kill people in a slasher film, I’d screw up the mask.
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