Film

Triangle

Name: Triangle
Genre: Horror
Released: 2009
Cast: Melissa George, Liam Hemsworth, Emma Lung, Rachael Carpani, Michael Dorman

A British-Australian horror-thriller from Christopher Smith, built around a group of friends whose sailing trip goes catastrophically wrong. Melissa George anchors a Möbius-strip nightmare of repetition, guilt and dread aboard a seemingly abandoned ocean liner. It's cerebral, cold and genuinely unsettling — for people who want their scares tangled up with a puzzle they'll be untying for days, not jump-scares.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like horror that builds from a single unsettling premise, where the dread comes from logic slowly tightening rather than jump scares, and you enjoy piecing things together as you go.

Skip it if you want a straightforward slasher with gore and steady scares; this one is patient, cryptic and withholds its answers for a long stretch, which can frustrate.

What it asks of you: Patience through a slow, uneasy opening, then a tight run of under two hours where small details matter and every scene needs your full attention.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Timecrimes2007

A Spanish sci-fi thriller where a man loops back through the same day, tangling himself deeper into blackly comic chaos of his own making — the same twisty machinery Triangle runs, tightened almost cruelly.

But Subtitled and low-budget, with an intricacy that demands your full attention from the first minute.

Coherence2014

A dinner party disintegrates into parallel realities and doppelgängers, shot for almost nothing and packed with the creeping paranoia that made Triangle work so well.

But Talky and dialogue-heavy, and the ending deliberately refuses to resolve everything.

Source Code2011

Jake Gyllenhaal wakes up in the same body, the same train, the same eight minutes, again and again, trying to stop a bombing — the same loop-as-puzzle pleasure with a glossier budget.

But Plays more like an action blockbuster than horror, and ties things up far more neatly than Triangle ever would.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Triangle

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

La Jetée1962

Triangle's spiralling fate-trap — the sense that the ending was always the beginning — descends directly from this one; La Jetée got there decades earlier, stripped to the bone.

A 28-minute French masterpiece told almost entirely in still photographs, about a man trapped inside a memory of his own death — quietly devastating and the blueprint for every time-loop nightmare since.

But No motion, barely any conventional scenes, just images and voiceover; feels more like an art installation than a film.

Session 92001

Workers stripping an abandoned asylum slowly turn on each other and themselves, dread built from isolation and guilt rather than gore.

But A slow burn with minimal jump scares; the payoff is quiet rather than explosive.

Dead Calm1989

A couple's ocean voyage curdles into a nightmare when they rescue a stranger adrift at sea — claustrophobic, tense, with a terrific Nicole Kidman performance.

But A straightforward thriller with no loop or supernatural twist, played far more conventionally than Triangle.

Ghost Ship2002

A salvage crew boards a derelict ocean liner and discovers it's still holding onto its dead — the same haunted-ship setting, cranked up for shock value.

But Gorier and campier, with far less interest in psychology than in pure jolts.

Oculus2014

Siblings confront a cursed mirror that warps memory and time, echoing Triangle's fractured sense of what's actually happening and when.

But Leans on more traditional supernatural horror trappings and less rigorous puzzle logic.

Open Water2004

Based on a true story, a couple left behind by their dive boat drifts in open ocean — visceral, minimalist dread of simply being stranded at sea.

But No twist, no genre trickery — just slow, realistic horror with a bleak, unglamorous ending.

Severance2006

Christopher Smith's other genre mashup: a corporate retreat gone bloodily wrong in the woods, with his same knack for dread laced with dark comedy.

But Broader and funnier than Triangle, tonally much lighter despite the body count.

Undone2019

Same engine as Triangle — a woman stuck reliving and revising the same events, unsure if she's unravelling a mystery or her own mind — stretched across a season and drained of dread in favour of grief.

A woman gains the ability to move through time after an accident and uses it to investigate her father's death, animated in gorgeous rotoscope that makes memory itself feel unstable.

But Animated adult drama rather than horror, more meditative than scary, and dealing frankly with mental illness.

Palm Springs2020

Strip out the boat, the blood and the guilt, and you're left with the same structural trap Triangle uses — someone stuck repeating the same events — repurposed for laughs and love instead of horror.

Two wedding guests get stuck reliving the same day forever and, instead of despairing, start treating it as a strange kind of freedom — funny, romantic, surprisingly moving.

But A broad comedy tone about as far from Triangle's chill as it gets; the cheerfulness might feel jarring by comparison.