2 days until Superbowl Sunday, but if you need something to curb your excitement and distract you in the meantime, I've got just the thing: this awesome head-scratcher about murder at sea. It was just released on DVD/Blu-ray this past Tuesday, February 2, 2010.

TRIANGLE (09):

My hat’s off to writer-director Christopher Smith (Creep, Severance) for this involving, juicy morsel of brain food. This is a supernatural murder mystery/psychological thriller that will have your mind running in circles. Some viewers will be frustrated with the confusing nature of the storytelling, but those seeking some mental exercise with their excitement will be greatly rewarded.

I’ll spare you the intimate plot details and intricacies, but the bare-bones of it is as such: a woman named Jess (Melissa George) reluctantly joins five other companions on a yachting trip that goes dangerously and mysteriously awry when an “electrical storm” leaves them stranded and forced to board a ship that appears to be eerily deserted. Then people start to die at the hands of a masked killer, and a mind-boggling mystery unfolds.

This is not merely a slasher flick on a boat though, mind you (though it will get your heart racing). It is a movie that infuses the best elements of several genres, a magnificent mishmash that will keep you guessing and have you performing mental gymnastics to deconstruct and dissect it all days later.

My only pet peeve with this flick is that it is far too reminiscent of the superior Spanish film Timecrimes (07), which in turn, is rather like a more entertaining thriller version of the brilliant “hard” science fiction film Primer (06). While each of these films is well worth watching, they share a common “time travel theory,” so if you’ve seen one it spoils a little bit of the fun in the others. Still, each puts their own unique spin on this provocative plot device, so fans of Triangle should hunt down copies of Timecrimes and Primer, and vice versa. Highly recommended.

8.2/10

P.S.: SPOILER ALERT! (DO NOT READ UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE SEEN THE FILM):

For those who feel like their minds have been raped and don’ think you entirely grasp the fundamental concepts or meaning of this film, here’s my take on it. The time loop Jess is perpetually experiencing leads me to believe that she is in purgatory, or at least some form of it.

The car accident begins and ends the loop, which serves as punishment for the horrendous way she treated her son (we see the “bad” version of her screaming at him and then killed by the “good” version of her that is trying to fix things and escape the loop). The cab driver is akin to the Grim Reaper, bringing her back to the dock to start the whole ordeal over again (something he says subtly suggests that he, unlike everyone but her, is aware of the time loop and knows full well that the car accident will recur and that she will be waiting here for him evermore).

If you are still nitpicking and are irked by her memory loss, I would argue that the events and her memory of them are subject to fate (a supernatural force which defies memory) or that she has a memory lapse each time that she falls asleep on the yacht. I watched parts of the movie more than once and this theory holds up under scrutiny. Christopher Smith did an excellent job with the details, and if you still can’t wrap your head around this, he only deserves more credit for making such an inspired brain-tickler.