Hallowatch 2026 No. 17: Triangle (2009)

Wikipedia • Spoilers to follow

I don't know if this was a horror movie. It was, ostensibly, a slasher, after a fashion, but it felt like it skewed closer to a time loop movie like Primer, Looper, or The Endless (which I guess is a horror movie) than it did horror. Maybe that's a tone management issue from writer-director Christopher Smith.

Triangle wasn't bad, by any means, but it didn't really go for horror, terror, revulsion, schlock or scares; it's main modality was one of building understanding like an older scifi movie, but even then it skewed extremely sentimental — uncharacteristic for its time, this was a "Horror Movie About" something, in this case, the stress of raising an autistic kid.

Which I guess that is very of its time, "what if your kid had ~Special Needs~", but it's less about the kid than it is about the mom lashing out and how she's doing the same thing every day. I don't think the movie's heart is necessarily in the wrong place; Jess's recommittal to the loop is about sacrifice in the name of your kid, and the focus of the movie as a whole is on the loop(s), and figuring out what's going on, not on their relationship.

All that said, the action and pacing and tension on this were all excellently executed; I very much recommend this movie, provided you can set that one bit of the premise aside. If you can't, there's probably other ways you can spend a hundred minutes.

The sets on this, specifically the cruise ship hallways set, were super cool. I'm glad they did that mostly-practically, 2009 CGI wasn't really "there" yet.

Rewatch? Feel like I already did that.

Sequel? No, I feel like that would cheapen it - the whole point was that progression was impossible but trying was the important thing.

Remake? I'd be more into a spiritual remake/redux than a literal one. ■

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