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Overview
Triangle is a twisty movie. You might think it’s just a slasher film, but then things change. And change again. Rhys describes this type of movie as a horror loop.
Like many of the movies on our list, the writer and director are the same, and this guy has done a great job. For a low budget film that has twists to what people are doing at different times, this movie held our interest and didn’t have a lot of unbelievable things happen. That’s big.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187064/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_(2009_British_film)
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Transcript
Stephen 0:46
today. This is like fourth movie now. We’re gonna talk about triangle and I’ve got a lot of notes for this one.
Rhys 0:54
Excellent. Yeah, triangle. This movie.
Stephen 1:03
Now this is the first one I mentioned this you that had some big name faces. Not, you know, Brad Pitt big name, but faces and names that I recognized. had one of the Hemsworth brothers. So if you don’t, don’t look at the screen, it can sound like Thor is in the movie.
Rhys 1:25
Yeah. Kind of slightly rude or dumber Thor, which is what?
Stephen 1:31
He doesn’t listen to this. That’s right.
Rhys 1:34
Yeah, that was his character that the movie came out in 2009. It was written and directed by the same guy, a guy named Christopher Smith. It was not
Stephen 1:46
sounds fake. But okay.
Rhys 1:49
Fair enough. Christopher Smith has if I had to guess about eight, maybe 10 movies on his resume at present. And I was really shocked to find that triangles, a third of the ones that I’ve seen. It’s the third one that’s actually on my list. He also and this is very telling, I think he directed creep. If you’re not familiar with it, I did not like it. It’s not a great movie. It’s a found footage slash fake snuff film. And I actually found the characters so annoying that there was no one to really root for throughout the movie. So I didn’t enjoy it. In fact, creep two is out already. He didn’t have anything to do with it. But I can’t quite bring myself to watch it. Just because it has the same guy who was in the first one. That’s fine. The second movie that he made that was also on the list is an excellent movie. And in fact, it’s on the shortlist for this season. It didn’t make it for this season. Maybe a future one is the Black Death. Oh, sounds pleasant and fun. It’s a period piece about the Black Death. And Sean Bean is in that Oh,
Stephen 3:15
another big name? Yes,
Rhys 3:16
another big name right? Does he die? So that’s a little bit debatable. Because in the official release, I believe he does, but there is a completely recorded alternative ending where he does not. Oh, it’s actually my preferred ending between the two. Okay. Oh, and oddly enough, that one’s happier. Yeah, usually I like the you know, alternative endings that were too dark for screen. This one’s This one’s a little bit happier. So yeah, Christopher Smith is really hit and miss. You know, he’s not like Cher Milan kind of hit and miss is a batting average is a little better than that. But yeah, some of his movies I enjoy and some of them I’m not crazy about. He did the cast. You pointed out that he had some big names in it. For instance, the biggest name that’s in it really is Liam Hemsworth. But if you look at it, you can make the argument that this was his first movie. He was in two movies in 2009. And this was one of them. And before that, everything else he had done before that was all television work in Australia. So he wasn’t like a household name or anything like that. It you know, like his brothers, but the main character in the story is a character named Jess and that was played by Melissa George and Melissa George has one of those kinds of faces that you’re like, I know you from somewhere. But when you’re hard pressed to say where it comes very tricky.
Stephen 5:07
That’s exactly what I thought.
Rhys 5:09
Right? So I went through and looked and she’s been in a lot of movies. She was in Mulholland Drive, a David Lynch film. Impressive. She was also in the remake of the Amityville Horror, not as impressive, but she was in that, but it’s a known movie to a lot is a known movie, but she was in my favorite, well, my second favorite vampire movie of all time, 30 days of night.
Stephen 5:37
Okay. Um, that’s probably where I recognized her from,
Rhys 5:42
could be. And she’s been in a whole lot of other movies. But they’re not necessarily the kind of movies that I would watch. So I don’t recognize any of them. Got it. Okay. The rest of the cast and this is, this is the funny thing because you were like, there’s people in there that I recognize the rest of the cast, Michael Dorman, and Henry, Dixon, and Milan. All of them have had parts in other movies. But they all have one important trait, which is what got them into triangle. And that important trait is that a triangle is another strange amalgamation film. It is a British funded film, it got money from Great Britain. The film was shot in Australia, in Queensland, Australia, and the setting of the movie is in South Florida. So they’re pretending to be in Florida. While they’re in Australia, being bankrolled by England’s
Stephen 6:49
from the National Lottery, correct?
Rhys 6:51
The
Stephen 6:53
was a great way to use funds. Oh,
Rhys 6:55
yeah, yeah. Screw the schools. Yeah, let’s make some other thing that ties all of these actors together is they’re all from Australia and New Zealand. Okay, every single one of them. So they didn’t have to go far. They didn’t have to pay to transport anybody. They didn’t have to pay, you know, to house somebody this, you know. So, I think that’s probably they might say, Oh, no, no, no, Melissa, George was just perfect for Jess. But let’s be honest, it was probably just, she’s here, she’s available. She’s good enough to do the part let’s hire. As far as category for this movie, I I have a subcategory of my own. And I just call it a horror loop. And it is a movie where you find yourself stuck in a situation that continues to repeat over and over and over again. And sometimes, in some movies, there’s a way out of it. Like you keep going until you get it right, much like Groundhog’s Day. But then other times it’s not there’s no way out. It’s just a loop that you have to continue experiencing.
Stephen 8:09
And I and I mentioned this, that you really liked the movie, I was about it. And I think part of the reason or the major reason is, even though it’s a horror movie, which could probably be debated and argued it’s mostly a time travel loop movie. And I didn’t see anything special in it, compared to some of the others out there like Inception or looper. It was like okay, I’ve seen those. So I’ve kind of seen this, just that they tried to make it harder. So to me, I was like, yeah, with the whole movie.
Rhys 8:45
So um, the difference between looper and inception in this for me, is that in inception, and looper, the characters, at least one of them knows what the hell’s going on.
Stephen 8:58
Which she does kind of start to figure it out,
Rhys 9:00
she does towards the end. But then, when everything starts all over again, you’re left to wonder does she carry that information with her or not? Right? True. In which case, this is just a never ending process where
Stephen 9:17
it’s a Choose Your Own Adventure without Yes, and
Rhys 9:20
yes. And what when I say horror loop, I started thinking what how many other movies are actually you know, would fit that category. And I was surprised. There’s quite a few and I’ve seen lots of them, and some of them are really good. Blood punch, can’t slaughter the endless final girls love final murals, and it is a horror loop.
Stephen 9:45
I just had a reference to that last night.
Rhys 9:47
Oh, that’s a great movie. Happy death day. I thought that was gonna be stupid. I was happily surprised when I watched it. The Hunger the road Not the famous one that everyone thinks of a smaller budget one that came out smaller road. Yes, a street really more of a street than road
Stephen 10:09
cobblestone.
Rhys 10:11
So horror loops are not unheard of. And it’s it’s just a kind of niche thing. And they work really well for a twist until you realize what’s going on. And then once you realize what’s going on, it becomes a matter of, well, what kind is this going to end up being?
Stephen 10:32
Which is funny you say that because Okay, so first of all the name which I’m sure we’ll get into a little more here, a triangle. being who I am, my first thought is Oh, Bermuda Triangle. Me too. And that was my first thoughts. I’m like, Oh, cool. But honestly, maybe this is what partly did me in on the movie was when they were on the boat, and you know, the storm and all that. But then they got that radio call. And then like, it was all statically. And they’re like, oh, who is this? And that? No answer. I’m like, oh, man, that’s them calling themselves isn’t it? This is gonna be some time loop thing. And maybe that kind of ruined it because I was in suspense anymore. I was like, Okay, I know what’s going on. So honestly, that could have done it. For me.
Rhys 11:16
It very well could have I think I told you this story. This was back when I was just taking suggestions like online, going to library and checking these movies out. And so this was the title that came up. I checked it out in the library looked at the case and I’m like triangle. Okay, this is gonna be some cheesy flick the Bermuda Triangle, it looks like there’s a guy with a bag on his head and a gun. Maybe there’s pirates involved. So you know, it might just be a fun romp. And then it really wasn’t. And when I think about it, of all of the horror loop movies that I’ve seen, this was really the first everything was different. Yeah, it was very different. But to your point, while I was making notes on this the other night, I was watching it with two of my kids. And my youngest son within 30 minutes, like had the whole thing cracked. He was like, Oh, this is what’s gonna end up happening. Oh, and I’m like, Well, yeah, there’s still gonna be at least one or two surprises for you. And there were, the movie keeps dropping like at least a shocking scene, or just a little something all along the way. So you don’t completely lose interest in the movie. It felt a
Stephen 12:31
lot like the old school adventure games we used to play like Labyrinth or something that you’re going around and you hit the lock, and then something different happens. And you know, it opens up new avenues. I mean, it really felt like an adventure game.
Rhys 12:44
Yeah, like fetch quests. Yeah. So again, we’re going to talk about it in depth. So if you don’t want anything spoiled, go see it now. Go watch it now. Pause. Welcome back. Like I was telling my kids when I was watching it, the credits were starting. And I’m like, the first five minutes of this movie are deliberately confusing.
Stephen 13:11
Yes. And that was my first thought I was like, and not knowing I’m watching a horror movie knowing that, you know, this is the first couple minutes. It was like, Wow, there is a lot left out here. There’s a lot going on that they’re not showing.
Rhys 13:25
Right, right.
Stephen 13:27
But it makes you think, one way of the mother.
Rhys 13:31
Yeah. And, um,
as an aside, you and I were having conversation that night about a movie that I had just watched, and that was like, the movie is actually talking about the difficulties of living with an autistic child. And that theme is so heavily handed and dealt with in it, it distracts from the rest of the movie. This movie is just the opposite. Where you have the difficulties of living with an autistic child, but it’s so subtly mixed in there. You almost miss it. Yeah, yeah. Until like, the very end.
Stephen 14:17
I did like about it, that that whole being sequence, if you watch it, your feelings towards it, and what happens changes, right? That was probably my favorite part of the whole movie. Really?
Rhys 14:28
Yeah. So the movie opens with a woman, Jess, who is getting ready for something. She has her son there. He’s painting there’s, it’s very disjointed and the way it’s shot. There’s little clips of this, there’s a boat out in the pool and she’s picking it up and then the next thing you know, she’s cleaning something off the floor and then the next thing you know She’s holding her son. And this is the first hint that you have that anything’s really wrong. She’s holding her son. He’s clearly upset. She’s crying. And she’s saying something about, it’s just a dream, what you’re seeing isn’t real. And then she’s doing something else. And then she’s cleaning the floor and the doorbell rings, and she goes into the door, and there’s no one there. She asks her neighbor, jack, jack, did you see who rang my doorbell. And of course jack didn’t. She packs her bag, gets in the car and drives off. And that’s kind of how the whole thing starts. And it has the feeling almost of a dream. Yeah. If you reflect on dreams after you’ve woken up, you know, dreams go from point A to point l to point Q, and every point in between just kind of disappears. And that’s a lot of what the beginning felt like. Now, when Smith was making this movie, he had said that he wanted it to be like Jacob’s ladder. But he wanted to keep away from those Jacob’s Ladder elements, which, you know, Jacob’s Ladder, one of my top 10 movies great. Yeah, and it was so genre defining, like, the entire, you can’t tell me the entire Silent Hill series was not like lifted from the visuals of that movie. And so I can see where if you were going to try and make something that was vaguely similar to that you’d want to steer clear of that? Because it’s like, I don’t know, say a cover band, playing Stairway to Heaven, you know, you’re never going to compare to the original. It’s been done so many times. Why would you do that to yourself? Um, so Christopher Smith is veering away from that, but one of the other movies that he loved a lot, is another one of my top 10 movies. And that’s the shining. Okay, and there are elements of Kubrick shining laced throughout this movie. Yeah. Now
Stephen 17:05
that you mentioned it. Yeah, very much.
Rhys 17:07
So the very first one is when the doorbell rings, and she opens the door, and she’s standing there. Her house number is 237. And if you’re familiar with the shining, 237 is the room where the ghost of the lady in the bathtub attacks? Little jack? Right. And it’s kind of like the heart of evil in that building in the shining. So I found that interesting. There’s an entire Have you seen the movie? 2370? No. Oh, it is a documentary. And it has about five well researched well thought out completely off the wall conspiracy theories about Stanley Kubrick’s the shining. Nice. And some of them are grounded in 100%. Fact. And then other ones are like it’s all a metaphor for secrets. He knew about them faking the moon landing. I mean, it’s that kind of stuff. You really should see that. If you haven’t seen it, look it up. It’s amazing. So you see the car going down the road, looking back on it, realizing that it’s shot in Australia, they did an amazing job of making it look and feel like Florida, right? I thought
Stephen 18:34
except for some crazy guy on the side of the road. You know, eating his own hand or something?
Rhys 18:40
Yeah, yeah, right, right. Yeah. No, Florida, man. But the next thing you know, she’s at the pier, and she’s walking down the pier with Victor, who is played by Emsworth. Listen, Liam Neeson. That’s like, no, that’s a very different movie. He’s walking down the gangplank towards this boat. Oh, they don’t. It’s the first shot is of the bow of the boat, and the boat is called the triangle.
Stephen 19:11
And I was like, okay, so maybe it’s not the Bermuda Triangle. It’s the reference to the boat, but it can be both.
Rhys 19:20
At this point in time, I first thought this is still gonna be the Bermuda Triangle. This is just irony that their boat happens to be named after it. The captain the boat, this guy named Greg. Greg lives on the boat. He has three bedrooms. And that’s where he stays he and Victor who you find out. It’s just some guy that he met and they started talking and got along so the two of them live on the boat. And for anyone who thinks that sounds odd, it’s not as strange as you might think. I had a cousin who for a very long time. They’ve done a boat and just would pull into different ports all along the Atlantic seacoast depending on what time of year it was and that’s where they would stay for you know, three or four months and then hit somewhere else.
Stephen 20:12
So you how he does that now he is a independent author and a seasoned MacGyver. He lived on a houseboat so yeah,
Rhys 20:20
it’s it’s it’s not an unheard of thing. So you have Greg and his friends show up. He has two friends, two childhood friends show up Downey and Sally. And downy and Sally are married. Sally seems kind of like a little bit of a Karen. She’s pretty used to getting her way. Yeah. And she knows how to say things and make things happen. So she gets her way.
Stephen 20:52
They definitely look like the type holding the martini on the mod, which was bring me another, you know,
Rhys 20:58
yes. When they when they finally leave port, I think I turned my son and I’m like, the professor ran. Of course, the joke was lost on him because he’s 14. He’s never seen that show. But yeah, and Downey is like your typical, like rich drunk playboy. In fact, at some point during the opening, Victor says, Hey, down, he can you give me a hand with this? And he’s like, No, I’m here as a guest of the captain. So I mean, he’s being a smartass about it. But still, he doesn’t get up to help him. He just stays where he’s at and continues drinking. They brought along with Heather, played by Emma lung. Heather is Sally’s friend, and Sally is brought Heather to hook up with Greg. That’s the whole reason she’s brought her. And you find out through dialogue in this opening act that Sally doesn’t care for Jess, she thinks that Jess is just there after Greg’s money, which he’s living in a boat. I don’t know how much money he’s got. But yeah, that’s that’s Sally’s opinion of Jess.
Stephen 22:06
I think she just kind of wants to control everybody. Yes, she knows best. And this may come up as we talk about it. But I really questioned the inclusion of Heather as a character in the whole story. She doesn’t really help the story much in any way, other than for you to go Oh, there go set her up with this, and then he ignores her. But really, if you take her out of it, it wouldn’t change the dynamic between him and Sally. And then him and Jess very much.
Rhys 22:38
So movies do this sometimes. And this is just a guess of mine based on comments that I’ve read around this movie. Sometimes a movie will have a famous star in the movie. And they’re only in it for five minutes. But that famous star gets like top billing that they’re there to help people go
Stephen 23:04
see the movie rights.
Rhys 23:07
While we’re on this slight aside, the movie cost $12 million to make. And it made cost $12 million to make because Smith was big into not using green screen. So like this, that’s pretty cool. The model of the giant ship is actually a stage built model of a giant ship. Wow. The movie only grossed 1.3 million. Yeah. Now, it’s also important to point out that this movie never ever released into us theaters,
Stephen 23:39
which does make it difficult to get ahold of right.
Rhys 23:43
So but I do believe if you go through everyone on here, if you happen to be in Australia, Emma lung is someone that you know,
Stephen 23:53
that’s probably one of the other ones I was thinking of. Yeah, she is
Rhys 23:57
very, very big in Australian television. Okay, she’s been in a lot of Australian TV shows. And so some of the comments that I read were like imagine having Emma lug you know, in your show and only having her in it for you know, for 15 minutes and I was like Emma who, but apparently she’s well known elsewhere, so
Stephen 24:24
Okay, so that makes more sense. Because you know, that’s a Hollywood type thing to do. It makes sense. But from a story and movie standpoint is she’s completely unneeded.
Rhys 24:36
You might think, okay,
Stephen 24:38
so prove me wrong, or tell me how I’m wrong when we get to it. That’s good. Okay.
Rhys 24:43
So, um, Victor and Jess are walking down the gangplank. Sally is very interested in introducing Greg to Heather and she’s just in the process of doing that and Greg notices Jess, Greg obvious Here’s the thing for Jess because he tells them to just wait right there and rushes off the gangplank to go meet her. Um, he has a few words, a few brief words with Victor as they pass because Victor is walking in front of her. And he asked Victor Is everything all right? And Victor says, Oh, I don’t think so did and walks past. And then you see Heather, and she seems shuck. Jess. Jess? Yeah, I’m sorry. You see, you see, Jess? And she seems like she has been shaken. And you’re not really sure why? Because last year saw she was just driving from her house. She was walking up with Victor. Did he say something? Or who knows what actually happened?
Stephen 25:42
And we did see at the opening sequence, she finds that note on the fridge, you know, be at the harbor at 830. And that’s when she grabs her sight. Yeah. So you know, the opening sequence. It’s like she’s getting ready to leave. She’s having trouble dealing with an autistic son who’s kind of holding her back a little bit. She wants to get going. And then they take off. And she shows up, doesn’t have her son with her. Not a big deal.
Rhys 26:06
Right? So she’s there, Greg walks up to her and says, Hey, you all right. And she leans in, and gives him a hug and leans in close and whispers, I’m sorry. At the time, you’re like, she’s running late. But of course, you know, looking back on it now, maybe even not having seen it. If I was watching it now is the guy who’s you know, logged in over 1000 horror movies. That’s a flag that she’s apologizing for something that the audience doesn’t know what yet.
Stephen 26:47
And I find it interesting, because of all the loop movies we were talking about. This is the only one I can think of that doesn’t start with the first iteration. It’s somewhere in the middle. We don’t know that right now. But it writes the very first time.
Rhys 27:01
And as the guy who saw it and thought this is a Bermuda Triangle thing, and there’s gonna be pirates. My thought was that, like maybe she was tied in with the pirates. And like she ended up Yeah, yeah. And everything up to this point. Didn’t dissuade me from that. However, I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, and I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. So
Stephen 27:28
you fail.
Rhys 27:32
He brings her on board the boat introduces her to everybody. And then the boat pulls out. And as the boat pulls out, there’s this aerial shot. One of the other things that I think is key dimension, there’s an element that occurs throughout this movie. And it occurs in the opening, it occurs during the introduction and occurs through the whole thing and that are seagulls seagulls are major character in this film. And not even necessarily, I mean, they use seagulls in the same way most movies do with symbolically representing as they’re flying away, you know, like souls and everything like that. But seagulls take on a much weightier role in this movie. As we go on. And, you know, we’ll cover that
Stephen 28:24
could I also was wondering if it could be related to the old sea legend of the albatross. And it wasn’t really the albatross. But you know, most people might not know that
Rhys 28:37
right Rime of the Ancient Mariner there’s a point later on much later in the film, where a bird gets killed and that was my thought was that it was an albatross. But once you see the bird being moved it’s obviously not an albatross because they have like a six foot wingspan.
Stephen 29:01
But with only a 12 million budget maybe he couldn’t afford the best albatross. That’s true,
Rhys 29:07
cuz that would have been like, icing on the cake right? If If it had been like an albatross take my money because that would have just been perfect. Um, so they, they start sailing off now, in accordance with the confusing opening that’s happened so far. Anything that has to do with just seems disjointed and confusing. Everything that’s has every anyone else involved? just seems like everyone else is involved. It seems like a regular like almost TV sitcom kind of thing. The next scene you see is rolling water. As waves are coming into the shore, some things being thrown about in the waves crashing with the waves. You see a real extreme close up of crabs scuttling through the sand. And then you see Jess Apparently lying in the sand and she opens her eyes, and then suddenly she’s back on the boat. And you realize, Oh, it was a dream.
Stephen 30:09
And I also found it very weird. You just got on the boat to go sailing with your friends and you’re going to take a nap. It was very odd.
Rhys 30:19
It was. However, you know, that plays out in the end. Yeah. Um, she wakes up Heather standing at the doorway. Turns out that she informs Jess, she has been asleep for like three hours. This is a long cruise. They’re on
Stephen 30:38
our cruise, obviously.
Rhys 30:39
That’s right. She’s got champagne, because obviously, nobody ever gets together on the weekends without champagne. And she and Jess go up top side together. Now you get this interaction where Jess is interacting with Greg. And he’s showing her how to steer the boat. She’s like, which way do I steer? And he just kind of points and goes aim for that. And there’s nothing out there. I don’t know what he’s pointing at. It’s open ocean, but so she aims for that. And you hear a bird cleaning overhead. And she looks up, and Greg’s like, Oh, it’s a seagull. It thinks that we’re a charter boat. And typically when charter boats go out, when they’re coming back, they have fish that are being gutted and cleaned by the staff that you’ve paid, you know, so when you get back all you get are filets. You know, everything’s perfect. And the seagulls will follow those boats, because all that awful just gets tossed out over the edge. And the birds can come down and you know, easy mail. So he’s like, it thinks that we’re a charter bird. It’s going to be disappointed and go home hungry. There’s some foreshadow for it. Right there on the wings of that goal. And this is the point where we realized that Sally is manipulative bitch, and you hear the conversation between her and Heather, where she’s saying, I don’t like Jess. She’s just some gold digger, you really need and Heather’s like, I like Victor actually. Of course, Sally, as you said, wanting to control everything is like no, no Victor for you.
Stephen 32:23
And she didn’t like just because Jess has an autistic son and oh, how could you? Wow, that’s shallow is person you could get.
Rhys 32:32
Yeah, she’s, she is probably the most stereotypical character in this movie. Heather walks over to the two of them. And let’s just know that Sally wants to talk to her, which is Sally’s ploy to get her away from Greg. And then she proceeds after Jess leaves. She proceeds to tell Greg I’m really not interested in you, by the way. Just pointing that out. Um, whatever,
Stephen 33:02
I think was actually good ever. It’s like, Look, I know it’s uncomfortable. I know. You know why I’m here. But look, let’s just go on with it. Because it’s not gonna happen. It’s fine. Yeah,
Rhys 33:14
yeah, yeah. Oh, way back at the start. When Greg is talking to Jess on the gangplank I just finally looked down at my notes. He says two things, which are very heady points. While he’s talking to her, she seems upset. She apologizes. He’s like you don’t have anything to apologize for. He says you can’t be everywhere at the same time. which becomes ironic here in just 15 minutes. And then he also says you’re a good mother, which could be seen as a bit of a leap Singh is how he knows her because she’s a waitress at a diner that he frequents. I used to go to a restaurant in talmage frequently for lunch, so much so that the waitress knew my order. I never had to order what I wanted. She just knew what it was and she would bring it whenever we’d show up. Amazing waitress, we tipped her Well, I don’t know if she’s got kids. I don’t know what kind of mom she is. I’m not inviting her on my yacht.
Stephen 34:24
But he was also going there because he was interested in her. Even if he did or didn’t know anything about her he knew she had a son. And you know, that’s something you say to console somebody and also if you’re trying to flirt with them a little bit, you know, well, thank you for saying that. You know, so I just took it as that.
Rhys 34:42
Okay, you’re just you’re like he’s a player. I get it.
Stephen 34:46
Now, I’m, I’m already gone. Yeah, I know where this movies go.
Rhys 34:53
They’re out sailing and suddenly the wind drops. It doesn’t just drop it just stops like somebody hit a switch and the Fans went off to the boat is dead in the water,
Stephen 35:03
which if you’ve ever been out on the water is extremely rare.
Rhys 35:07
Yeah, you might have a dip in wind speed but not like just sudden instant doldrums. Like that’s not something that happens right now. Just gets worried and asked Greg if there’s gonna be a problem because she has to get back to get her son from school. That is something she said to Victor which threw him off. She said, he asked about her son. And he said, she said he’s not kidding with us. He’s at school. And that struck Victor’s odd because it was Saturday but then Greg points out he said a special needs school. They’re open all the time. So she says to Greg she’s concerned about getting back and Greg’s like don’t worry about it. We’ve got a motor on this boat for us comes to worse. We’ll just turn the motor on and it’s right about now that Downey makes his contribution to the film one of the two and points out that there is a huge black storm cloud headed their way Greg does you know what I think is a pretty sensible thing. First he hits the radio called the Coast Guard and says Hey, you guys got anything and the Coast Guard is like no up to this point the first time I saw this, this is all playing into my Bermuda Triangle theory
but they say no, and he’s like okay, cuz I’m looking at it it’s coming and now a voice breakthrough on the radio. It’s a female voice and it says help us she’s killing everyone and Greg being the responsible Captain that he is is trying to get information to help he’s like distressed callers repeat you know, broadcast again and he asked the Coast Guard if they heard anything and then the line the line line the radio basically goes dead he comes back and you can see the wall of water that is the rain coming down and I just as an aside, I love that not necessarily in this movie but in real life where you can see the strap coming and you can actually see Yeah, with the rains coming It’s always fun so it looks like this boats about to get tossed around and it does Greg sends everybody below decks to put on life jackets and stay down there and my son’s like, is that a good decision? That was like well on a sailboat there’s a lot of stuff that has to happen up top in a storm and you don’t want people in the way who don’t know what’s what’s happening.
Stephen 37:58
So the chance of being washed over to right because
Rhys 38:01
you get you get these rogue waves that are big comes over the top it’ll wash you off. So everybody goes below.
Stephen 38:08
And just for anyone that hasn’t seen the movie, this isn’t like a cruise ship. There’s not deck space. I mean they’re hanging on to lines and walking the edge of the boat. You know, you’ve probably seen that it’s a small little craft. Yeah, it’s
Rhys 38:20
it’s bigger than you know. It’s bigger than a ski boat for sure. Yes. But it’s got like probably a top deck and then rooms below. And the rooms below are probably you know if I had to guess I would bet this is a 30 maybe 40 foot boat.
Stephen 38:39
Yeah, you’re not holding a dance party below decks. You
Rhys 38:42
are not No, you’re not even really standing up, right? So they’re down there and Greg and Victor are giving it they’re all trying to, you know, save this boat. They’re cutting sales and doing whatever they possibly can. And then there’s that whole the perfect storm scene where there’s just this wall of water as a wave comes and you’re like, there’s nothing this boats doing the turn the wrong way this is. It’s just over. Yeah, that’s
Stephen 39:13
the first thing I noticed too. It’s like, Oh, yeah, that’s not good.
Rhys 39:17
Yeah. Um, the longest short of it is, when it’s all said and done, the boat is upside down. The keel is broken. You can see like, the keel is broken. Everybody’s on top of the boat with the exception of Heather who got washed out to sea. So we don’t know where Heather went. I had their goodbye Heather,
Stephen 39:39
which actually may have been the best thing to happen to her.
Rhys 39:43
So and we had this debate when I was watching it with my kids.
It turns out in the long run, this is something that Jess is basically causing to happen by running eating certain actions over and over and over again. On the one hand, you can see the Heather character as the human sacrifice necessary to get the ball rolling.
Stephen 40:12
Oh, good toy. Yeah, there you go. Um, then
Rhys 40:17
the debate that we were having afterwards is not what happens to everyone else. Do you consider Heather the lucky one? That’s what I guess she dies by drowning, as far as we know. Right? over and over and over again. I suppose everyone else who dies of violent death over and over and over again. So I guess it’s a question of, okay, would you rather drown?
Stephen 40:45
But where does it start, though? See, I took it that wall of water. Once they were through that, that’s where the looping stuff started. So Heather, kind of got thrown out the beauty of that. So that part probably only happened once in the timeline.
Rhys 41:02
Except the very end of this movie.
Stephen 41:05
True. Yeah. It’s all certain again, you’re right, you’re right, that that, okay.
Rhys 41:12
Jess is legitimately concerned now about actually making it back in time to get her son. It doesn’t look like she’s gonna be there for the three o’clock pickup. And just about the time people are really starting to worry, this giant boat starts appears on the horizon. And it’s a big old cruiser, passenger, luxury cruise liner, not like modern era ones. It’s not like, you know, the kind that carry an entire city. But it’s still a very, very big boat, like,
Stephen 41:48
very imposing. I mean, it’s almost like a battleship.
Rhys 41:52
Yeah, I mean, it turns out, it looks like that, because it was built in 1923. When they, you know, everything they built could be a battleship at the time. And I think that’s one of the beauties of not doing it on green screen. building that giant model makes it imposing, you know what I mean? It was there’s actually a lot of weight to the whole thing. It feels like, you know, there’s a lot there. I don’t know, maybe I’m sure CGI could have easily done something just as imposing. It’s just,
Stephen 42:31
I don’t know me. And Collin had that discussion. And we totally love practical effects, as opposed to CGI, for the most part. I mean, there’s a lot of good CGI has done in recent years. And you really can’t tell sometimes, you know, you need CGI for some of the stuff that’s going about nowadays. But when you can get it, those practical effects still look superb. And I guarantee 20 years from now, that effect will probably look better to us than Marvel movies.
Rhys 43:04
That’s a really good point. practical effects really don’t age a whole lot if they’re done well. Yeah. As opposed to, you know, digital effects will age just because the technology, you know,
Stephen 43:16
you get used to the new technology, you know, I still think the AD AD scene and Empire Strikes Back looks really good. I love that.
Rhys 43:25
See. So they’re all going to get on this boat, they see somebody, like on one of the upper decks, they’re like, Look, there’s somebody there. And the boat pulls up alongside, they get onto the boarding ramp, they climb up the boat, and it seems like the boat is completely abandoned. It looks like there’s no one around.
Stephen 43:48
There it goes the Bermuda Triangle part now.
Rhys 43:51
Yes. Now I’m just waiting for the pirates, right?
Stephen 43:55
We keep going keep waiting. Yeah.
Rhys 43:59
So there’s some discussion about who’s going to do what and this is. This is where it gets a little confusing, because I thought they were gonna split up. I thought that Greg and Jess, we’re going to go find the captain in the pilot house and everybody else was going to but they all end up together anyways. Yeah. Once they step into the corridors of the ship, that’s where the second really heavy influence of the shining comes through. Walking down those corridors felt just like you’re at the Overlook Hotel. You know, I just see Jess riding a big wheel down down the aisle. I mean it has that same kind of repetitive, monotonous look to it that you had in there. So the name of the ship is the ALS and this is interesting to me because he wanted to do A Sisyphean type story without making it seem like it. So he picked Sisyphus, his father ALS, ale was was a God of the winds in ancient Greek in the post, and that Hello, Hellenistic Greek period, he was a mortal, he was a king, whose mother was Helen, the face that wants to 1000 ships. His son was Sisyphus. And just for anybody listening, is this a fist? tricks, death and chains death into a chest. And everybody stops dying? Yay. Areas gets pissed, because what’s the point of having a war if people aren’t dying? And so he goes and freeze death. And they punish Sisyphus by forcing him to roll a massive boulder up a hill, just for it to get to the top and then roll all the way back down. And then this is what he does for eternity.
Stephen 46:04
So we’ve got two big themes from the movie, no death and repeating the same thing over and over. Yes. I thought was really great tying it in that way.
Unknown Speaker 46:16
Yeah,
Stephen 46:17
I love that part of it.
Rhys 46:19
Well, and to me, especially once you have the whole story, like Hulk complete, Jess is trying to cheat death. And his punishment for cheating death. Jess has to roll this boulder up this mountain and down again and another mountain and down again for eternity.
Stephen 46:37
So if you’re paying attention, you just figured out the movie essentially.
Rhys 46:41
And right about here is where price is like, Oh, I know what’s going on. I mean, like he saw it, he had the whole thing done. everybody walks down into a ballroom there’s a whole banquet thing of food there. No people still. And so they’re hanging out. eating apples and bananas. I don’t know if I suddenly showed up there’s a giant buffet table. That’s not the first thing I’m going to eat right myself is gonna be dessert and right.
Stephen 47:17
But it was also I was looking to see because they flashed it I was like okay, is the food like all moldy and rotten and stuff? And it wasn’t. I’ll which made it even creepier actually with nobody around.
Rhys 47:28
Right? What’s this fresh food doing here?
Stephen 47:31
Yeah, it’s a horror movie. It’s supposed to be like rotten,
Rhys 47:34
right? along the way. And this is where it gets hard to tell the story. Like if you don’t have the script, or you’re not going through it scene by scene, because this stuff just starts happening. Like they hear somebody dropped something. And Victor goes to investigate and it’s a pair of keys. It’s a set of keys. Turns out it’s jesses keys. Sally sees those and assumes since Jess had them on board the ship that Heather grabbed them and Heather must be on board and she must be alive. And that is Sally’s annoying point. From now until further into the movie. Heather is you just hear her walking around the boat going Heather? Heather, are you there? It gets to be a little bit over the top. But you know, that doesn’t necessarily make a movie bad. Right? jet again the shining one of my favorite movies. But Sally devall in that movie is like over the top hysterical to the point you just want to slap her doesn’t take away from the movie, in my opinion. So they’re going to split up, Greg is going to go look for something who knows what Greg’s gonna go look for. But you know, he’s acting still as Captain on board this ship. So he and Jess are going together to go look for something. Victor walks off following a noise that he heard down the hall. And so Greg tells Downey and Sally to just wait there. So we have room buddy placed. One of the things that they do frequently in this movie is there are reflective surfaces. And there will be multiple reflective surfaces like a wall of slats of mirror. And Jess will walk past them and they will purposely shoot it in the reflection. So you see you’re going from mirror slice to mirror slice. This is a theme that they use onboard the boat a lot. Yeah. And it becomes evident over time. There’s several different gestures on this boat. And so the mirror is kind of like that fragmentation of Jessa she goes past um, they’re walking around. They’re checking for stuff And I’m trying to think, I don’t think they find anything else concrete.
Stephen 50:12
No, and that seems to be a loop movie. And like you said, things start happening. And it ends up being them from other loops. And it does get hard to talk about. But it builds very well. That’s why I said it felt like an adventure game. Because the first time through, there’s no clues, except for the keys. And then the next time they see somebody else, and then there’s something else that happens, and then bad stuff starts happening. And then you see, oh, that’s the blood from this bad thing. And, you know, it’s all these buildup of all these things happening to them.
Rhys 50:49
Yeah, um, somewhere along the line, they find a room, they open the open the door to the room, the number of that room is 237. They go inside, and there is a triptych of mirrors. So three mirrors, again, going with the triangle, three sided theme, and written on the mirror in blood is go to the theater. Which for some reason, Greg thinks is a good idea. Somebody is gonna write something in blood on a mirror.
Stephen 51:26
to it, there were definitely a few parts of the typicals stupid teenager in a horror movie stuff. You know, it’s just like, What? Why would you do that? By yourself? Any And not only that, he argues to convince everybody else that is the right thing.
Rhys 51:42
Yes, he gets in an argument with Jess she gets upset and walks off on her own. He decides to proceed to the theater on his own. Jess is walking along. She runs into Downey and Sally and they’re on their way to the theater. Cuz she told them to go to the theater. Well, the thing is, at this point in the movie, Jess has not told them to go to the theater. Just goes into the ballroom by herself, and Victor comes walking in, and he’s covered in blood. And well, that’s new. Then he starts to strangle Jess. And he is strangling Jess and she’s just flailing around and reaches around and there is a massive hole in the back of Victor’s head, and she like sticks her fingers in there a couple times, just to get him off of her. He does eventually get off of her and she gets up and she sees something move. She sees like a thing of movement. And she decides, well, she’s contemplating what to do about it what she hears a gunshot. Leaving Victor on the floor. She heads off to where the gunshot is and walks into the theater, only to be accosted by Sally who accuses her of shooting him. And Greg is lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood dead. Down is holding him Sally’s very upset, accusing gestures shooting him just as like I wasn’t me. I don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s like he said it was you. And then suddenly, this figure in the balcony wearing coveralls and a bag over their head raises a shock into their shoulder and shoots Downey and then shoot Sally. And as the two of them are trying to limp away, shoots in both together and just takes off. This is this is where I was like pirates. Okay, we finally got to the pirate part of the movie. I’m Jess is running around on the decks being chased by this figure. The figure like she trips the finger puts the gun down in her face. It’s getting ready to shoot her and then when it goes to shooter she moves the gun to one side and then moves the gun to the other side. And then just runs
Stephen 54:20
it she like jumps over the edge basically shimmies down and scoots herself into the deck below. And yeah, the gun battle and doing that. I was like wait a second. She’s been almost catatonic this whole movie and now suddenly She’s like a super action star hardcore
Rhys 54:41
hardcore. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I’m not going to necessarily hold that against a horror movie. Because people always are doing things that are uncharacteristically really well done by them in the horror movie without definition of why?
Stephen 55:02
See I took it. At some point I said, Oh, you know what? She’s already lived through this 300 times. So not only does she know what’s going on, she’s got the moves down pat. It’s like doing the same move in martial arts over and over, you just get it down to point you’ll do much better at that’s how I ended up taking it. When I first saw it. I was like, Oh, come on.
Rhys 55:27
Eventually, the two of them end up duking it out, she’s got an axe, the hooded figure has this long piece of metal, they’re battling it out on the on the deck, she ends up disarming the hooded figure, it’s backed up against the railing, she’s got the axe and it’s and it’s saying in a feminine voice, you have to kill them, you have to kill them all. It will start again, when they’re all dead. She’s swings the axe, the figure leans back out of the way and falls over the railing at this point, just walks over to the railing because she hears noise and looks and there is the triangle the boat upside down with the crew on it headed towards the ship
Stephen 56:14
back up cuz I think that doesn’t she hear the music first? No goes, Okay.
Rhys 56:20
Okay. The music immediately follows this.
Stephen 56:22
Okay, okay. Because I have a point there, too.
Rhys 56:26
So she hears that, it freaks her out, as it would seeing yourself approaching where you are. And she starts to walk away. And as she starts to walk away, she hears music, and it is record skipping.
Stephen 56:44
And when she’s looking at him over the edge, they’re yelling, hey, help us help us, which is what they said earlier when they first saw the ship. Correct.
Rhys 56:51
One of them says, I see somebody up there on the deck. Turns out it’s her. So she finds a room. A cabin off to the side goes inside, there’s a record player, old wind up Victrola kind of record player. And it’s skipping and the record is playing anchors away. You had something about this?
Stephen 57:14
Well, right after this, cuz she goes back out to the deck that
Rhys 57:21
Okay, okay, well, before we do that, yes, she stops the record, and starts it from the beginning. And it starts playing, and it is playing anchors away. And it is a recording of Glenn Miller and his orchestra playing anchors away. This becomes tangentially important because Glenn Miller and his orchestra went missing at sea, in what they call the English Bermuda Triangle in the channel between England and France, on a return journey from Europe one time. And that’s that’s what happened to Glenn Miller. We don’t know he disappeared. Um, so that’s a really nice song choice to stick into a movie about
Stephen 58:05
lower budget horror movies, these guys sometimes get, every little thing sometimes can be important. The details
Rhys 58:12
are insane. There’s a car accident that happens towards the end of the movie, and there’s a license plate. And somebody had commented, I’d noticed this, somebody commented on this, the only number you can see on the license plate is a pan past is an eight, which is on its side. So it’s actually an infinity. And I didn’t catch that. Okay, you’re really good point.
Stephen 58:37
But that’s the best movies and TV shows and stuff that you can see these things and interpret them different and have discussions and you know, debate.
Rhys 58:46
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so she goes to leave the room, she bumps the record player, and it starts playing the repeating skipping that she had heard when she first heard the music.
Stephen 58:59
Now, this is something you brought up, she doesn’t we don’t really follow her leaving the room. We follow her reflection, and the camera goes into the mirror. So now we’re in the mirror universe. And I was like, Oh, that’s a clever, clever way of doing that. Very Silent Hill. But yeah, it’s it’s, it’s, you know, blatant we’re in a mirror reflection
Rhys 59:24
of life. Yes. So now love that. Now we know as the audience that this is happening over and over and over again. And you could hear I mean, you’d have to be fairly sick to not get that the hooded figure is Jess. Right? And did you
Stephen 59:48
also notice she goes back to the rally in there on the thing saying there’s a figure and blah, blah, blah, but when they show it it’s the opposite way of the on the ship. Yeah, it was like this. And she was Hear them when they showed it through the mirror, it was the other ones
Rhys 1:00:03
over there. Yeah, that’s a really good point. Um so what ends up happening is there are multiple jesses going on in this story. And you can you can chart them out kind of watch, which I did. I mean wow positions, not where they’re at. But there’s basically three jesses the first Jess is the one who we just finished with, I call that just one and just one’s whole goal is we have to get home. That is her biggest concern. We have to get home have to get back to my little boy, Jess to is where we are right now. And this Jess it you find out her whole goal is to get everyone off the ship. She doesn’t even care about getting home. She thinks if she can get everyone off the ship before anybody dies, she’ll save them all. Just to goes along. And the first person she actually interacts with she sees she sees the whole party get on the boat, walk down the hall, she hears the conversations. She’s squatting down listening to them walk it’s her keys that fall out of the pocket that makes the noise that Victor goes to investigate and come back with her keys. So it’s that whole thing, timing y-me kind of thing going on. You know, she wouldn’t have had her keys if she hadn’t dropped them and pick them up only to drop them again later. The first person of the crew that she actually have the survivors that she actually interacts with is Victor. She ends up on the deck because there’s a body floating in the water dressed all in white. Looks like it’s probably Downey. Maybe it’s Greg they both were wearing all white but they are seagulls just having a field day. All of a sudden the door opens and Victor comes out and he’s like how’d you get out here so fast. Now she’s trying to explain to him what’s going on and doing a piss poor job of it. She’s saying like, there’s a me down there right now. But you’re going to be dead and you know these people are going to die. We have to get everybody off the boat. And look, there’s a body out there. Victor’s eating an apple because you know, he’s a Hemsworth. He’s got to keep his figure. He only eats like fruit and vegetables. He walks over and looks over the rail and there’s a whole bunch of seagulls there. So he throws his apple at him. They fly away and there’s nothing there. So he’s pretty convinced that Yeah, Jess, you’re just a little bit whacked. And he very condescendingly says, I’m gonna do you a favor. I’m not going to tell anybody this happened. She decides to get physical with the whole thing and grab him and be like, No, I’m telling you. This is the truth. She pushes him against the wall. At which point there’s a spike it just about head level coming out of the wall to like, hang something on. And it goes straight into his skull.
Stephen 1:03:19
Yeah, it’s action star Jess again. Yes. And her back and she.
Rhys 1:03:25
Yeah. Victor looks a little surprised. A little taken aback. Yeah. And then just as like, Oh, I’m really sorry. Bye. I’m gonna leave now.
Stephen 1:03:38
She makes some very questionable decisions. Con she does. She does like, like, I questioned right then, when they were coming on the boat. Okay, I gotta let him know I gotta save him, blah, blah, blah. But I don’t want to approach him and talk to him. I’m like, screw that I would have been going down the steps like, hey, look, there’s two of us. Let me explain. You know, this is a problem.
Rhys 1:03:58
Yeah. And she doesn’t even really do that until far later in the movie. Yeah. When she tries to like, so she goes down. She’s like freaking out. She’s basically just running around the ship. And she ends up in a darker sub part of the ship, and finds pieces of paper lying all over the floor. And she picks them up, and it says something like, they all have to die. Yeah. Every one of these pieces of paper looks identical, like it was just copies. So she grabs a piece of paper off of a pad nearby and a pen and writes, they all have to die and then looks and she’s basically made that exact duplicate crumpled paper up. So I had already figured out at this point that this is a time loop tiny, whiny kind of fit, right? But I thought oh well you know, it’s getting started. wasn’t until I saw the giant pile of paper. I’m like, Oh no, it’s not just getting started. This has been going on for a while. We’re in the middle of it. She crawls over, she like turns and she’s overtop of this great. And she looks down the grate and there’s a pile of lockets with a picture of her son at the bottom of the grate. And as she’s looking at it, the one she’s wearing gets caught on it and falls down. Just to reinforce. You’ve been here several times before. This is also where the armory is. She grabs herself a shotgun,
Stephen 1:05:35
and I don’t want to talk to my friends. I’d much rather shoot them.
Rhys 1:05:41
At this point, she is still get everyone off the ship Jess. She is not. I’m gonna kill everybody. Jess. She’s taking the shotgun because I still don’t know that she knows who’s wearing the hood, who’s running around wearing the bag. So she wants protection for herself. She grabs that hood, and walks down the hall. She’s walking towards the towards the ballroom and she sees in the ballroom herself. She sees a noise maid sees herself hide, sees herself step out and sees Victor walk in and she does Victor’s about to strangle herself. So at this point, she just walks in with the gun. And everyone else in the room is like Victor’s holding a hand out towards her because she’s got a gun trying to keep his distance from her. And the other Jess is understandably shocked. Yeah, upset. shocked by this. She turns and runs.
Stephen 1:06:53
Yeah, that’s her major decision quite often is I’m gonna run away cuz that will fix it.
Rhys 1:06:59
Yeah. So my daughter found flaw in the move who are watching it and she’s like, there’s no way she’s running around that ship in those wedges.
Stephen 1:07:09
Leave it to her to fight figure that out.
Rhys 1:07:11
But that becomes important eventually. Which is insane. The shoes become important. Um, Victor just decides he’s gonna sit on the floor and process this and you know, bleed some more, because that’s what he’s really good at right now. So she hears the gunshot she heads to the theater. Since she walks in Sally’s about to go all carrying on her. You shot her and she sees she’s got a shotgun. Now Karen’s not quite so brave. And then she walks in and just turns right to the balcony and shoots at the hooded figure saving Downey and Sally. So she has managed to break the loop in my mind. It’s like, oh, things are different. Now. She and downy and Sally start heading down the hall. She hears a noise. Somehow they end up separated. And she gives the gun to Downey tells him just shoot anybody you see who’s not me. And then as she’s going to investigate whatever it is, she’s like, No, you know what, don’t even really trust me. And then she leaves around the corner comes her again. And this is just three. And this is this is the time when they overlap. And this is the mystery Jess. Just three, his whole goal is to kill everyone. Just three has scars on her face. She’s very, she’s no longer the demure obsequious character. She is like, follow me. Follow me if you want to live. I’m thinking like Sarah Connor type deal.
Stephen 1:09:05
Yeah, she’s very determined and focused and angry.
Rhys 1:09:10
And Downey and Sally decide to follow her. Of course. Now, here’s the mystery about just three. We follow Jess till she becomes just one. And then we see her become just two. And then we see the end of just twos journey, which is off of the boat. Where did just three come from? In the script, yes. So there’s lots of different possible solutions for this. One of them is when she interrupted Victor from strangling the other Jess and that other just ran off. Baby that’s who eventually becomes just three or maybe this just Maybe there’s lots of justice throughout the ship,
Stephen 1:10:04
that is how I kind of took it that this is the 15th loop or whatever and it’s been looping. So there’s multiple iterations all kind of hat because this ship is like the Nexus that it’s not a time loop that’s linear like we understand time we you know, we’ve heard all that all the time. It’s it’s all this stuff is kind of always happening at once it keeps building on itself. So every change still lead to the same end result. But there’s just more and more of these all looped on each other.
Rhys 1:10:38
Now that brought up my daughter’s other comment, she’s like, Where are all the bodies? And it turns out, the Jess three is about to answer that for us. Yeah. She takes Sally and Downey back to room 237. They walk in and they’re like, what’s going on, she’s got this bag and she gets into the bag, pulls out a knife and slices down his throat and then turns and stabs Sally. Sally manages to get away. And as she’s getting away, she runs into just too. And she sees just too and freaks out and runs away from Jesu, who follows her
Stephen 1:11:20
once again trying to explain everything poorly,
Rhys 1:11:23
right? cuz she’s still just two is still let’s just get everybody off the boat. Just three, on the other hand goes about the business of making sure this keeps going. She dipped her fingers in Victor’s blood and rates are down his blood and writes on the mirror, go to the theater. She disposes of down his body by throwing it off the boat. She throws Greg’s body off the boats and that’s pretty much the end of Jess three we don’t really see Jess three much after that point. As Sally is running away from just two, she ends up in the radio room. She makes a call. You’ve got to help us she’s killing everybody you hear Greg on the other end?
Stephen 1:12:09
Just finally all the little things are coming together. Yeah, where we found us as the viewer get to see it in the movie. Correct. You know, if you’re paying attention at this point, you’re getting it all but it’s really starting to all piece together. Here it is
Rhys 1:12:25
jelly jelling very well, and they didn’t think of everything. You know, where’d the bodies go? Yeah. Hey, you’ve got psycho Jess here who’s more than willing to clean things up. And one of the things I saw was pointing out that there are three different jesses onboard the ship. Again, the triangle theme, you have three. So you have three personality. Jess on the ship. Excellent.
Stephen 1:12:49
I love that. Yeah. Real quick as an aside, yeah, I think the next Halloween movie needs to be a time Luke movie like this.
Rhys 1:12:57
I’m surprised they haven’t done it.
Stephen 1:12:59
Absolutely. Why haven’t?
Rhys 1:13:01
Yeah, I’m just too here’s Sally on the radio catches up with Sally. Sally’s crawling up the stairs. And just as following her still trying to explain. And this is one of the legitimately shocking scenes in the movie. Jess comes up the stairs and she has the shock look on her face the camera pans back and there’s just a deck full of dead Sally’s. And there are seagulls just, you know, enjoying a little bit of Sally. Yeah. Sally, despite all of the dead copies of herself continues to crawl to the nearest wall,
Stephen 1:13:40
and is more concerned about Jess? Yeah, and the dead bodies of herself.
Rhys 1:13:45
Right? Um, she sits there, she accuses Jess of being a horrible person and then proceeds to die. It’s at this point that Jess is like, Oh, wait, everybody needs to die because when Sally dies, she hears the triangle approaching again. So this time she decides she’s going to throw in the suit. And just make sure that everybody dies and saw
Stephen 1:14:17
the earlier question where number three come from crowds. So essentially we got introduced to her. But now is when she’s being created. So I again I took it as these loops are on top of each other.
Rhys 1:14:33
Right? This Jess However, I’m still calling her just two. Okay, because just three who’s out to kill everybody. I don’t want to say she’s enjoying it. But she’s good at it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean that move slicing down his neck and just the cold stabbed and Sally’s abdomen. Didn’t think twice. It was just
Stephen 1:15:00
If you do like Halloween, this part of it feels a lot like Oh,
Rhys 1:15:04
yes, yes, Jess three is Michael Myers.
Stephen 1:15:10
She doesn’t talk, she just right,
Rhys 1:15:13
brutally acts right. Just to on the other hand, gets the gun. She grabs the bag, she goes to the theater. And when Greg shows up at the theater in the balcony, she puts the bag on her head and holds him at gunpoint. And she’s not sure she’s gonna shoot him. She’s got her finger on the trigger. And she’s basically like shaking. She’s really nervous, upset by the whole thing. And Greg is trying to talk his way out of it. He’s like, we’ll get off the boat, I don’t care. Just let us go, whatever. And he looks down at the goddamn shoes, and notices those wedges that you couldn’t possibly run on according to my daughter. And he’s like, Jess, and that’s what finally forces her to pull the trigger. Yeah. Once she does that, once she pulls the trigger, she goes ahead and does all the other executing parts. She shoots Downie, she shoots Sally, and she hunts her own self down. She gets herself down on the ground, she’s got the gun to her. Again, she’s hesitant, because she’s still just too at heart. She’s not the psychotic killer. She’s looking at herself, begging for her own life, saying, I’ve got a son. Eventually, I don’t even know that she would have shot her if she hadn’t grabbed for the barrel. You know what I mean? It’s it’s something forces her to action. Her grabbing for the barrel forces her and action she shoots. They end up fighting. She’s there with the bag on her head. They’re doing the duel with the heavy wrench thing versus the axe. And then she is the one who gets knocked overboard and falls off the water. And I’m like, there it is. Loop broken. Roll credits. But know
Stephen 1:17:12
how you couldn’t be more wrong. We still have the whole opening sequence that doesn’t make sense yet. Yes,
Rhys 1:17:18
just to solve. She wakes up. Just like from her dream. There’s surf. There’s something being tossed in the waves. It turns out it’s the coveralls that she was wearing. She’s lying in the sand. There’s crabs crawling around in the sand. She walks out across the beach, finds a road hitchhikes gets a ride back to her neighborhood. She’s sprinting down the road to her neighborhood until she gets to roughly where her house is. And now she realizes something’s amiss. Because everything is just as it was that morning. jack is out watering his yard, her sprinklers going her cars in the driveway, her cars in the driveway, she walks up and peaks in the window. And her son Tommy is there painting his picture.
Stephen 1:18:09
And if you really think about it, you got to ask yourself, wait a second. She was that concerned about her son? She said he was at school, but she goes home.
Yeah, that’s it. And so there’s a part of her that knows something is still going on. And a part of her that knows there’s no reason to go anywhere else to look for her son.
Rhys 1:18:31
Right? And while she’s looking at him through the window, he glances over and sees her and it startles him because she’s actually in the kitchen. What’s she doing looking into the window, and he spills his pate. And at this point, we realize that the original Jess is kind of a bitch, because she loses it slaps him and is telling him he’s a piece of shit just like his dad. Yeah, she’s cleaning up the floor.
Stephen 1:18:59
Totally changes the feelings for Jess and the opening sequence.
Rhys 1:19:02
Yes, and it harkens back to that where Greg’s like you’re a good mom. Really, Greg, she’s not.
Stephen 1:19:11
He’s just trying to get get to know her.
Rhys 1:19:14
Right? Just to on the other hand, saying this happens. She has made up her mind to do something about this. She’s very angry. Right? She’s very angry with herself. And this is one of those kinds of things where you had that piece of cake at 11 o’clock last night and you’re pissed at yourself about it. You could always come back in time and be like Jess, right? Be like I’m fixing this. So she rings the doorbell the original Jess goes and answers the door doesn’t see anyone there is like jack Did you see who rang my doorbell. The whole time she’s having this conversation. Just to is in the backyard. Opens the shed and comes out with a hammer and a lot of details. The camera goes back to original Jess who walks back into her house. She walks into her bedroom probably to change because she got paint on her dress. And out of nowhere incomes just too with the hammer, who promptly bludgeoned herself to death with the hammer right there No,
Stephen 1:20:19
no monologue. No.
Rhys 1:20:22
Damn fam
Stephen 1:20:23
learned from past movies at least, that’s right.
Rhys 1:20:27
Tommy sees this happen. He’s upset. So just to goes over and holds him and comfort him. And she’s crying and he’s crying. And she says, it’s just a bad dream. Sometimes you see things that aren’t really there.
Stephen 1:20:40
Okay,
Rhys 1:20:42
yeah, she takes her dead body, puts it into a garment bag, stuffed full of clothes, zips up clothes and throws it in the trunk of her car.
Stephen 1:20:51
So she wasn’t really packing to go on this trip. In the book, right? Right. So
Rhys 1:20:57
all the scenes that you saw where she was packing the stuff and driving off, that’s actually just two from the start of the movie here at the end,
Stephen 1:21:06
which theoretically, I guess could be just 3722
Rhys 1:21:10
That’s right. She’s driving down the road. She’s trying to have a conversation to calm her son down. And I can understand that when my kids are upset you know, you want to do whatever you can to help them feel better.
Stephen 1:21:24
She She I’m not that person anymore. I’m gonna be a good mom. Trust me it is not the same. And I took this to be you know, she she’s heading to the boat with her son this time. Last time she didn’t have them for whatever reason. But now she’s because she pulled the note off the fridge again. It almost had the feel, you know, in movies. Oh, yes, I can do that. That’ll I can fix things now. That’s how I took all that.
Rhys 1:21:53
That’s really funny because my thought was she’s just getting rid of the body.
Stephen 1:21:57
Which you could do have to do that, too. You know, that’s just a side quest.
Rhys 1:22:02
Right? As she’s driving along. A bird runs into our windshield. And it upsets Tommy a lot. She pulls over. She’s like, I’ll get rid of it. She grabs the bird again. an albatross would have been like icing on the cake, but you know, that’s fine. Heather was the albatross. She wears human sacrifice. Yeah. She picks up the dead bird walks over to toss a bird over the railing and tosses the bird over the railing and stands there for a minute and the camera pans down. And there’s this giant pile of dead seagulls.
Stephen 1:22:35
Oh, man, we are not free of this yet.
Rhys 1:22:39
We are still in the damn loop.
Stephen 1:22:41
And she realizes and that. There’s the whole catatonic I’ve almost given up, Jess, you have um, the beginning.
Rhys 1:22:49
She gets in the car, she starts driving off. There’s a marching band practicing out on the field, and what are they playing. And that’s distracting to her. And she’s trying to calm Tommy down. And as she’s doing it, a semi truck is coming the opposite direction. And she’s left to center and they hit her car flips. And the next thing you know, you see, just to standing there by the side of the road next to the car. You see the original Jess lying out there, because she got tossed all around in the accident and you see dead Tommy lying out there. And there’s a guy standing behind her going, Wow, there’s really nothing they can do for that kid now. And turns out he’s just a taxicab driver who was there. And he just stopped.
Stephen 1:23:38
Now knowing how these stories go in ancient times. And we had ALS and Sisyphus who was the driver. I really I did not take him to be just a taxi cab driver especially he says, Well, you know, there’s nothing they can do for him. He is another god. But I couldn’t figure out who.
Rhys 1:24:00
So again, I’m not gonna take credit for this. I saw this in a comment somewhere. He’s Cheran. Okay, the fairy man who take off I should.
Stephen 1:24:10
I should have got that then that’s perfect. Yeah.
Rhys 1:24:13
And it becomes even more apparent here in a second. He offers her a ride. And she says yes, take me to the harbor. Because if she can go back and cause the loop to happen again. This time, she’ll do something different. And change her behavior
Stephen 1:24:30
because that’s how this works,
Rhys 1:24:32
right? Because people change. So he gives her a ride to the harbor. He stops and she goes to get out, she’s falling asleep. She goes to get out of the car and he’s like, I’ll keep the meter running. You’ll come back right? Because you got to pay the ferryman. She lies to him and says I’ll be okay. She’s not lying. I’ll be back.
Stephen 1:24:54
Yeah, but that’s perfect. I love that I actually like that a little bit better than
Rhys 1:25:00
Yep. So she gets out of the car, she runs into Victor. They like bump into each other. And he’s like Jess, and she’s like, Do I know you? And she seems out of sorts. And he is like, I feel like you do. You know, Greg’s always talking about you. And where do you bring your son, she’s like, he’s in school. And she’s like, the whole dissociative just from the start, and they walk down the gangplank only for the loop to start all over again.
Stephen 1:25:26
Yeah, it’s definitely a depressing ending. It
Rhys 1:25:30
is. And on the one hand, it plays, it plays into the whole Sisyphus thing very well, where she’s being punished. On the other hand, it also is this great analogy for, you know, you’re dating this guy who’s horrible, and you think you’re going to change him. But people don’t change now, because Jess is trying to change. And she just ends up doing the exact same thing over and over and over again.
Stephen 1:25:59
And it’s, it’s great, because, again, most of these movies start with the first loop. This one you catch on, it doesn’t it doesn’t start with the first loop. And it doesn’t end. right for them. It’s just continuous.
Rhys 1:26:15
Yeah. It’s the weird part of the loop that’s not on the boat. Yeah, that’s, that’s about the only thing you can say about where the movie started.
Stephen 1:26:22
It’s that, like I said, choose your own adventure, where it takes you all the way back to the beginning. And you’re like, oh, man, I made the wrong choice. I got through this story again.
Rhys 1:26:32
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So um, now you weren’t crazy about the film? You said?
Stephen 1:26:38
No, I wasn’t again, I think because I’ve seen a plenty of time loop movies. And it was like, Yeah, I know what’s gonna happen. And it did live up to a lot of that. But honestly, sitting here talking about it, I feel a little better about it, I think that the intellectual discussion made it a little more enjoyable for me.
Rhys 1:27:00
And that could just, I think, Christopher Smith did a really good job of putting stuff in there. Yeah, if he’s gonna be guilty of anything, it was that he. And so many people do this. He took a tried and true format, you know, the horror loop concept. And, you know, he just made another one. And if you’re gonna do that, it’s got to be something crazy outstanding to really rise above the pack. And I will say, you know, of all the horror loop movies that I just listed, this is probably like the top one of the top three. I’m not even gonna say it was the best. But it was the first of adjara that I came across, when I was on this kind of organic, finding horror movie kind of thing.
Stephen 1:27:49
And for me, even all the things like the super action star, Jess, and that there wasn’t a lot of eye rolling. Going out there. gadi hitting me on? It did. Yeah, you know, I gave it a chance. And it all jelled and made sense and it all explained itself very well. So I mean, it was a fairly masterful work in in the time loop you know, I can appreciate that if nothing else.
Rhys 1:28:18
Yeah, so yeah, so there it is. I think you know who’s gonna want to see this movie I think it’s a serviceable if you like, the kind of I mean, we kind of solved the who done it for you. But if you want to watch it being done, you know, and you enjoy this kind of slow burn slight action kind of thing. This is a pretty enjoyable little flick to watch.
Stephen 1:28:44
Yeah, yeah, like Dean haglund on chill pack says belated spoiler alert. But how do you think it would have done if it had been released in the US?
Rhys 1:28:56
I think this would have been one of those middle of the road horror movies I think instead of let me look at my numbers again real quick. instead of hitting 1.3 million it might have gone to like 1.8 it would it still would have never come close to matching budget. Yeah. Because it wasn’t there was no star power to it at the time when it was released. And it was not it wasn’t some media Darling, you know what I mean? Blair Witch did not have any star power but it had a crazy great marketing strategy. And so many other ones like antichrist had star power, but it was so over the top. Nobody should watch this movie you know kind of thing. But that just being that far over the top and cutting out it like the the movie, you know, festivals and things that That was enough to project it into, Hey, no, we got to check this thing out. You think you can hack it you know, let’s go watch it kind of thing. Um, paranormal activity is the same kind of deal where it was like, there was no star power there. But it was so identifiable. You know, these are just like cameras in your own house kind of thing. And
Stephen 1:30:20
well, you know, Tom footage, you can’t have stars, you can’t have people that are recognizable, totally defeats the illusion of what they’re trying to portray. And I remember you mentioned Blair Witch, I remember the story about these guys go into work, and going Oh, man, I’m so sorry. I heard about your niece. And this guy’s like, what about my knees? It’s like, Well, you know, she died. No, she didn’t, you know, he did not know what was going on. But everybody that knew him thought it was real. So that that’s what made Blair Witch such a mega hit at the time.
Rhys 1:30:53
And there’s a lot to be said for that kind of stuff. Like Blair Witch came out in the marketing was so brilliantly done for it. I went to see the movie, in the theater with my father in law of all people who
Stephen 1:31:06
hate him to you telling me that.
Rhys 1:31:10
And I left and I was like, that was a pretty cool experience. Just the whole thing. The more times I watched the movie, the more annoying it gets.
Stephen 1:31:19
Yeah, yeah, it’s a one time deal. And you have Zack know what’s going on?
Rhys 1:31:22
Yes. And I think that was kind of the thing with triangle for me, too. That’s why it hit me so hard, was because I was expecting this. That’s true. And I got this, which was completely unexpected, and kind of a new genre for the horror area. kind of deal. Yeah.
Stephen 1:31:39
Cool. Well, yeah, there you go. So another good movie. Alright, and check out for people.
Rhys 1:31:46
The our next move is going to be radically different. And it is a movie that is recommended by everybody. Like Guillermo del Toro. This is one of his top five movies. Anybody who’s anybody in horror is like, Oh, no, that’s that’s a masterpiece of a film right there. So
Stephen 1:32:06
it’s not even Hitchcock. It’s not and so it’s it’s the innocence which is based off of Henry James turn to the screw, we’ll talk more about it. So it’s the first movie we’ve got based on a book. It’s the first movie we’ve got in black and white. And it’s also one of the first movie we’re doing and probably one of the few that has a million other you know, iterations of this movie. Oh, yeah, quite a few.
Rhys 1:32:36
Oh, it’s it’s insane. I don’t even think it was the first year we’ll talk about it next time. Yeah,
Stephen 1:32:41
we’ll talk about next time. There’s just a preview. Yeah, there you go. I gotta watch it. So we got to do that soon. All righty. Later when they get
