The Great Outdoors

A day after I watched A Lonely Place to Die, I took part in one of those obstacle-filled 5K runs where savvy Groupon buyers get to climb (or walk around to avoid) temporary walls and crawl through mud in the name of emerging victorious with a novelty water bottle. As I reached such 'fun' stops as the traverse rope, monkey bars,  and balance beam, I came upon a sad realization: 

I would never make it out alive in a horror movie.

Particularly a survivalist one like A Lonely Place To Die.

Quick Plot: Allison (genre stalwart/not Radha Mitchell Melissa George) and four adventurous pals are scaling a few mountains in scenic Scotland. As they munch on controversially delicious mackerel and egg sandwiches, the group discovers that a young, possibly Croatian girl named Anna has been mysteriously abandoned underground in what seems like a living tomb.

With a language barrier and impossible cell phone reception, Allison and head climber Rob decide to scale a few big rocks to get help. Naturally, things go awry when Rob's rope is cut and Allison discovers the group is being hunted by two not-so-sharp shooters trying hard to reclaim Anna. What follows is a fairly tense cats-and-mice chase through some extremely effective wilderness, eventually diluted quite a bit by a third group of kidnapper retrievers.

A Lonely Place To Die is directed by Julian Gilbey, a man who clearly has a deep and symbiotic relationship with the outdoors and translates it well onto film. When his characters are wandering through the sprawling mountainside, this is a great thing. The batch of five friends (one married couple, plus Allison and two other men whose relationship to her isn't explicitly explained) manages to be compelling without too much exposition or theatrics. The couple mentions their daughter in passing, adding some weight to what might be their fate. Ed, Allison's friend (question mark, since everyone hates him), has an effective transition from spoiled jerk to dude you want next to you under pressure. As Allison, Melissa George doesn't necessarily get to display a deep and complicated back story, but we don't need it. What we're seeing in A Lonely Place to Die is five characters fighting for their lives in confusion. We don't need to know their history to care, so long as the material is done right.

For most of its running time, it is. Where Gilbey falters a little is in the explanation of not only his villains, but of yet another group of badass mercenaries tailing them. The overall script and pacing are by no means bad, but it just feels as the grandeur of wilderness horror can't be maintained once we see cars and pistols. Gilbey is smart to set his more 'societal' act against a pagan street celebration of sorts, but it still: to go from Cliffhanger-esque scenes of mountainous tension to bar stakeouts is a letdown.

High Points

Filmed on location in the Scottish Highlands, enough can't be said about the beauty and potential terror in A Lonely Place To Die's setting. Between sprawling forests, rocky rivers and huge mountains, cinematographer Ali Asad captures the wilderness in all its glory

Low Points

Unfortunately, the action eventually moves to a far less lonely place to die

Lessons Learned

Whiskey + gin = ginsky, and well, it's not good

When a crazed woman who's obviously being chased pounds her way into your home, it's probably a good idea to close the door after her

Those who don't surf, climb

Rent/Bury/Buy

I was slightly disappointed by the somewhat anticlimactic finale of A Lonely Place to Die, but the film is still better than your average Instant Watch. It's well-made, beautifully shot, and decently acted. Your life won't see any significant changes after it's over, but for 100 minutes of your day, it ain't bad.

Melissa George Has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day

I love a film like Triangle. Loopy, mind-bending, refreshingly ambitious and well made. I want you to watch it, plain and simple. And for that reason, what follows will be a spoiler-free (save for my Low Point) review.

Don’t say I never give you nothing.

Quick Plot: Single mom waitress (is there any other kind when it comes to indie films?) Jess (Melissa George) heads to a Florida harbor to spend a warm afternoon on a boat with a prospective laid-back rich boy beau (think Noah from the latter seasons of Beverly Hills 90210) and his small assortment of richer friends. The birds are flying, the sun’s as bright as a baked potata and it sure seems like a shaboinkle day.

Cue the sudden drop of wind and entrance of some very angry clouds. A storm quickly rages, capsizing the vacationing crew and leaving them stranded in the middle of a very blue ocean. Things look grim until a giant cruiser cruises by. The gang board but quickly sense something is very off...mainly the fact that nobody seems to be anywhere.

Triangle is a smart film but not, as some would have you think, a total mind trip intent on driving you insane. I imagine those who call it such are the same people who claim Inception doesn’t make sense on its first viewing. It leaves you with a boatful of questions, both moral and logical, but at the same time, the storytelling is intense enough to keep your mind in gear. We don’t always know exactly what’s going on, but we’re involved enough with Jess to follow her as she figures it out. 

Most excitedly, Triangle is kind of scary. This isn’t a necessarily movie designed to give you nightmares, but there are plenty of earned jumps and since you’re so focused on trying unraveling the mystery, they genuinely do grab you. Maybe it’s just the natural offness of the creepy Town That Dreaded Sundown baghead mask.

Writer/director Christopher Smith is probably best known for the horror comedy Severance,  a film I thoroughly enjoyed even if it never quite reached Shaun of the Dead heights. With Triangle, he goes in a very different direction, offering a Twilight Zone-esque story with interesting moral implications. At times, it’s frustrating, but the script holds up through the end and proves to be tighter and more provocative than we’re led to belive.

Also, it must be said, Triangle is a gorgeous, gorgeous film. The early scenes on the water build a grand picture of being stuck at sea, while the set design and photography of the ship offer an interesting and almost ironically claustrophobic feel so fitting to the actual plot. Smith was clearly making some nods to The Shining, and while some references are a tad too cute (Room 237, for instance) the idea works well to establish a place that just isn’t right.

High Points

While I always liked the fact that Melissa George worked a lot in the horror genre, I’ve never really had a reason to think much of her acting abilities. In Triangle, she’s pretty fantastic, believably inhabiting a role that proves far more complicated than we initially think

I’ve grown rather tired of the old single-mom-with-special-needs-child ploy to instantly grab some sympathy for a female lead, but Triangle manages to make this cliche work, both due to George’s performance and some of the minor plot kinks. We genuinely want Jess to get home and pick up poor Tommy at the bus stop

Yes I loved the visuals of Triangle and while I don’t want to just gush at every major feature of the film, I’ll also throw out a compliment to the haunting piano score

Low Points

This is the only part of this post where I’ll delve into spoiler territory, so close your eyes, jump down one, and I’ll be there:

One of my biggest pet peeves in cinema is the irresponsible driver, the character--more often than not, a parent--who continuously turns his or her head at an obtuse angle to speak to whatever passenger (usually a child) is sitting comfortably in the back. Every single time this happens on camera, I throw up my hands and expect, without any doubt, to see a mack truck in the foreground speed towards our supposed protagonist’s windshield. Every. Single. Time. Not too surprisingly, Triangle is guilty of such a crime, odd considering how tense and alert Jess should be at this point in the story

END OF SPOILERS

Lessons Learned

When planning on fixing up two of your friends, you should probably confirm that one half of the prospective couple isn’t planning on bringing his own date to the communal event

Florida is home to quite a few almost Australians

Wedge heels can be quite inconvenient, particularly when your day will, without almost any doubt, include a whole lot of running

Rent/Bury/Buy 

I was prompted to watch by the ominous red front warning from Netflix that Triangle will no longer be streaming, plus a year’s worth of quiet hype the film had built in the genre community. Boy am I glad I listened. Triangle is the kind of film I love, one that takes a familiar premise but gives it a fresh spin. It’s an engrossing, challenging, and highly entertaining watch that most genre and in general, film fans will at least respect. A definite rental, and considering its complexity, an easy rewatch that warrants a buy.