The Triangle

This film does a great job of building atmosphere and giving you characters that feel real-ish.

Then it gives you like a quarter of a plot and some hints and ultimately goes nowhere. It also really drags in pacing as time goes on. Potential squandered.

The Found-footage genre seems to attract the worst kind of film maker. The ones who would rather do cheap vanity projects than actually attempt to make a decent film. After watching this poor excuse for a film, I think I hit the nose on the head with my assumptions. Let me set the scene for you; a group of dorks receive a postcard from one of their missing dorks, and he invites them to visit him in his commune. The commune is really a bunch of entitled losers who decide to forgo the comforts of modern society and instead live cheaply in the wilds of the Montana desert (I didn't even know Montana had deserts). Everyone in this group is an insufferable hippie; who in their right mind gives up modern things like electricity and television to live with a group of other weirdos, freaks and geeks? There is something strange going on, but no one wants to talk about it.

That's where the movie failed for me. The film starts out with an hour of people talking, giving each other weird glances, a camera man who is scared of his own shadow, and a just cult-like atmosphere seeping from every corner of 'The Triangle'. So for almost an hour, we see their daily activity, from cooking to pooping, and nothing else of interest goes on. I am not exaggerating; save for the camera that gave me violent nausea, nothing else of interest goes on. Until they show the film crew what it is that they were hiding.

My interest peaked, I thought we were going to be treated to a final half hour of creepy developments and startling discoveries. But, just as quickly as the interesting thing happen, the movie ended. Not in a whimper, but in a half-hearted "Meh".

It was obvious that the film makers were on a budget, or were just extremely cheap, since this film literally ended like most movies begin.This whole experience felt like something that was half baked, like a cake that was taken out of the just as the outside turned brown. The credits told me everything I needed to know about this failure, and with a truly talented team, this movie could have been something interesting. But these people are not talented, nor do they deserve your time or money. Avoid this movie, never speak of it, and watch something else. Anything else. Just because I wasted an hour and a half of my life, doesn't mean anyone else has to.

Heed my warning; This "Triangle" definitely deserves to disappear.

So - If you don't have the patience for a slow building film or need to have every aspect explained to you....you will not enjoy this film. It will only leave you angry and confused. Aspects of the story are decidedly vague. There is a lot of handheld camerawork and (nicely done) split screens. I went into this film with the lowest of expectations. I'm still surprised at how engaging it turned out to be.

Found footage in rural Montana. That's all you need to know. The acting was solid and convincing. The build-up is slow and keeps you wondering which direction the film would eventually take (you won't likely guess right off). It's not by-the-numbers suspense and the feeling of menace and unease feels more nuanced and genuine than most. If you enjoy a variety of found footage films - this one definitely gives you something different.

It was more indie movie slow, but they did not have the blair witch vomit inducing shaky cams.

A decent enough piece of Lovecraftian horror, sans blood and gore or expensive special effects, that only hints at the cosmic terror haunting its victims. The Triangle has the look and feel of a fairly low-budget affair, but is filmed in a beautiful, stark location that lends to a suspenseful atmosphere. There are many open questions of character motivation and backstory that some will find unsatisfying. However, I was fine with certain key plot elements being left open to my imagination.

Done right, the filmmakers could have elaborated and put the finishing touches on a masterwork of dread. But, given the ambition of the idea behind The Triangle, they could've more easily gone too far making silly, illogical choices, creating not a modest psychological thriller, but a full-blown farce. In the end, The Triangle is an incomplete, interesting charcoal sketch of a paranoid's half-remembered nightmare, but not a fully rendered, color masterpiece of a seer's infernal vision.