Triangle (2009)

Calling Triangle Christopher Smith's best film is an axe to the head compliment: Creep and Severance were both films that didn't live up to their poster campaigns.

Higher praise is to call his latest film an effective, compelling Rubik's Cube of Terror.  That it ultimately doesn't add up does not detract from the fun had on the voyage.

Keeping characters to a minimum is a Smith motif, and here he has Melissa George (becoming quite the scream queen with this, WAZ, The Betrayed, and 30 Days of Night) as Jess, a working class woman joining rich, nice guy friend (Dorman) and chums aboard his yacht.

After a freak storm capsizes their boat, the party seek refuge aboard a deserted cruise liner, which is like The Shining's haunted hotel all at sea.  But, odd messages scrawled in blood on mirrors, and bloody palm prints decorating the decks, suggest they are not alone.

And when the party start turning up mortally wounded, why do they blame Jess?

A story not so much circular as positively loopy has George playing different variations of her character as Smith keeps the "is she or the world barking?" guessing game going.

The script can't plug all its leaks, and as the story reveals itself character logic implodes: yes people split up to maintain story momentum and do things they know will land them in deep water.

But, the well-executed storm sequence and several cat-and-mouse cut-and-run moments of horror aboard the ghost ship prove how far Smith has come since his first two "could do better" movies.

The movie lets itself off the hook with an ending that can too easily explain away its plot holes, but the final act twist does pack an unexpected emotional wallop that colours everything that has come before.

Choppy then, and prone to listing, but with Triangle Smith has come of age.

Rob Daniel