Line #144 Film/Triangle


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/triangle_poster.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:[[TagLine Fear comes in waves]]]]
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4	''Triangle'' is a 2009 British-Australian {{psychological thriller}} film directed by Christopher Smith (who also directed ''Film/Creep2004'' and ''Film/Severance2006'').
5
6	The story revolves around Jess (Creator/MelissaGeorge), one of the passengers of a yachting trip in the Atlantic Ocean who, when struck by mysterious weather conditions, jump to a [[GhostShip deserted cruise ship]] only to get stuck in either a GroundhogDayLoop, StableTimeLoop, AlternateTimeline, BadFuture or CloseEnoughTimeline.
7
8	Yeah... It's [[MindScrew pretty confusing]]...
9	Naturally, EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory occurs.
10
11	Not to be confused with the 2007 Hong Kong film or the 1981 British soap opera [[SimilarlyNamedWorks of the same title]].
12
13	----
14	!!''Triangle'' provides examples of:
15
16	* AbusiveParents: [[spoiler:Jess, as it turns out (both physically and verbally). She really does love Tommy, but his disability takes her to her limits and beyond.]]
17	* ActionMom: Toyed with. Maternal figure Jess reveals her decent combat skills while on board.
18	* AlphaBitch: Sally, to an extent.
19	* AlternateTimeline: The first time [[spoiler:the first Jess meets the second Jess ignoring the Killer Jess before]] a new timeline has been created where the other passengers died differently. [[spoiler:Subverted in that the two timelines play off at the same time and each influence each other. For example the new timeline eventually causes the second Jess to have her own story, which we don't see, where she eventually killed some of the passengers as the second masked killer which eventually made the first Jess turn into the first masked killer. Also, in the end it turns out that the only timeline that really matters is one that is overarching to both of these.]]
20	* AmbiguouslyGay: Greg seems to be viewed this way by Downey: "You are living on a boat with an 18-year-old boy and you are asking me not to bring girls". He later also inquires if Greg and Victor sunbathe together. He seems to be implying that the two are involved.
21	* AmicableExes: Greg and Sally used to date in high school, and still refer to each other as their "ex". They remain best friends to their late 20s [[spoiler:when they die]].
22	* AmnesiaLoop: [[spoiler:Both versions of Jess who turn up at the harbor have undergone traumatic experiences and it is evident in their behavior. Later in the timeline of the first of them, she falls asleep for a couple of hours. When she wakes up, one of the first thing she mentions is "I don't remember". During the loop she seems to re-learn things that she had forgotten about. One interpretation is that the loop gives her temporary amnesia and she keeps attempting to recover her memories. When she succeeds, its time for the cycle to re-start.]]
23	* AntiHero: In the end you realize that, basically, everything bad that happens to Jess and people around her throughout the film is her own doing.
24	* AntiVillain: [[spoiler:Jess kills all her friends, but she did it in order to stop the time loop from happening.]]
25	* ApologeticAttacker: [[spoiler:"Mean Jess" from the second loop, after she's finished repeatedly stabbing Downey. "I'm sorry, but I love my son".]]
26	* ArcNumber: Several scenes occur in either the residence of Jess or a cabin of the Aeolus. Both are numbered "237" as a reference to ''Film/TheShining''.
27	* ArcWords: Jess says "I didn't do this" whenever something her alternate versions do, going hand-in-hand with PoorCommunicationKills. Given the lesson of the movie, it's probably to show that [[NeverMyFault she refuses to accept responsibility/the fact that]] [[spoiler:she killed her son and it can't be undone.]]
28	* AssholeVictim:
29	** [[spoiler:Arguably Sally, due to her bitchy and disdainful attitude towards Jess (even going so far as to snottily refer to Jess's son as a "retard").]]
30	** [[spoiler:Jess herself. At least, the ''original'' Jess, who was physically and verbally abusive towards her autistic son, and was killed by the 'Time Loop Jess' whom we follow through the movie]].
31	** [[spoiler:'Mean Jess', who brutally stabbed Downey and Sally, ends up getting beaten to death by ''yet another'' Jess (presumably an earlier iteration of herself)]].
32	* AtopAMountainOfCorpses: Sally atop Sallys.
33	%%* BetaCouple: Sally and Downey.
34	* BludgeonedToDeath:[[spoiler:Jess smashing the original Jess' head in with a hammer.]]
35	* BreakTheCutie: Jess. She went through so much trauma due to the looping time and weird things happening around her - not to mention eventually learning that [[YouAlreadyChangedThePast she already tried to change events in previous loops]], she's MaddenIntoMisanthropy.
36	* BreakTheHaughty: Sally. She is hardly a sympathetic character, and constantly acts as if sitting on the high horse, but then she's chased like a wild animal by a masked killer, only to [[spoiler: run into a pile of ''dozens'' of her own bodies in different stages of decomposition while already badly wounded]].
37	* BrokenBird: [[spoiler:"Mean" Jess from the second loop. We don't get to see her full story, but WordOfGod believes her to be a Jess who has gone through the loop so many times she's become callous and psychotic.]]
38	* CameraAbuse: When the record player plays the broken record, we see a couple of freeze frames in sync with the jumping of the needle.
39	* CassandraTruth:
40	** Greg doesn't believe Jess when she claims that she's sure she's been on the boat before, trying to tell her that it's all in her head. [[spoiler:Unless the entire movie takes place in Jess' head, of course.]]
41	** Victor figures early on that something is off with Jess, because she had trouble answering where her son was and then claimed he was at school. On a Saturday. He warns Greg, who ignores the warning and theorizes that special needs schools are open at weekends. [[spoiler:Jess is lying and her son is dead by this point]].
42	** The cab driver warns Jess that [[spoiler:there is no point in trying to save the boy (her son). Yet she voluntarily re-enters the loop in an effort to do just that, despite the mounting (literally, in the form of mounting bodies of Sallys and seagulls) evidence that it is futile. One view of the events of the film is that the only way to actually end the loop is for Jess to finally quit trying.]]
43	* Myth/ClassicalMythology: The plot lays out a personal hell for Jess with obvious references to the story of Sisyphus. According to the myth, Zeus enchanted the rock so it would roll down before reaching the top of the hill. Jess's intent to save her son represents that enchanted rock which crushes her every time she rolls it up. That's why she always ends up dead no matter how the loop turns, either in the accident or killed by herself on the ship.
44	* ComeWithMeIfYouWantToLive: [[spoiler:Mean Jess]] asks this of Sally and Downey. [[spoiler:They pay with their lives for trusting her. Though what exactly "life" and death" mean on that ship and in the film in general, and how permanent "death" is - that's anyone's guess.]]
45	* CouldntFindAPen: Downey starts to [[DyingClue write his killer's name on the mirror]] using his own blood, but dies partway through.
46	* CynicismCatalyst: The car crash that kills [[spoiler:Jess' son]] marks her StartOfDarkness.
47	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Victor. Per the backstory, he got in trouble at home (wherever that is), ran away, and spent time as a vagrant. Greg found him sleeping at the harbor and took him in.
48	* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: Averted. Heather looks like the designated character to complicate the Greg-Jess relationship. However, she [[SacrificialLamb exits the stage]] before a serious LoveTriangle can unfold.
49	* DesignatedGirlFight: [[spoiler:Killer Jess vs Jess, when we watch things from Jess' perspective. Later, when Jess is right next to dying Sally, she watches as another Jess murders Mean Jess with an axe]].
50	* DeusAxMachina: When being chased by the SackheadSlasher, Jess grabs a fire axe off the bulkhead of the ocean liner and uses it to defend herself.
51	* DespairEventHorizon: Jess reaches this point twice. First on the ship when she realizes that she can't set things right and subsequently turns into a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. The second time this happens after the car crash that [[spoiler:kills her son]].
52	* DisappearedDad: Jess raises her son Tommy as a single mother. No indication what happened to the father, though she casually mentions that he was an asshole.
53	* DiscoveringYourOwnDeadBody: It's almost impossible to imagine what poor Sally must have thought on stumbling upon THAT pile... Alleviated a bit by the fact that she's arguably an AssholeVictim.
54	* DisproportionateRetribution: When asked why Sisyphus was doomed to push the rock up the hill, Sally answers that he made a promise to death that he didn't keep. In the end [[spoiler:Jess promises to return to the black-clad cabbie driver, but does not and begins the causal loop again]].
55	* DistressCall: The Triangle gets one from the GhostShip. [[LostInTransmission It amounts to nothing.]] [[spoiler:As it turns out, a future Sally sent it.]]
56	* DisturbedDoves: A flock of disturbed seagulls take flight when Jess bursts out on to the top deck and finds [[spoiler:a wounded Sally crawling away through piles of dead copies of herself]].
57	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The loop ''will'' repeat itself again and again.]] Though there's arguably a small bit of RayOfHopeEnding as well since we learn that [[spoiler:Jess might be able to escape the loop if she's finally ready to accept the death of her son and move on.]]
58	* DramaticUnmask: When the SackheadSlasher's identity is revealed. [[spoiler:It's another incarnation of Jess.]]
59	* DreamingOfThingsToCome: While on board Greg's yacht, Jess dreams of her body washing up ashore on a beach. This happens much later on the film. [[spoiler:Due to the nature of the time loop, this scene may instead be a fading memory of a previous cycle of the loop]].
60	* DriverFacesPassenger: Late in the movie, [[spoiler:Jess is distracted by her son in the backseat, so she turns around for several seconds without looking ahead and crashes into an oncoming truck]].
61	* DrowningPit: The interior of the sailing boat becomes a DeathTrap when water floods in during the storm.
62	* DyingClue:
63	** [[spoiler:Downey]], with his last breath, manages to write "[[spoiler:Jes]]" on the mirror [[CouldntFindAPen using his blood]]. Too bad, the killer sees it first and subverts this trope by changing the message to [[spoiler:"[[SchmuckBait Go To The Theater]]"]].
64	** Also [[spoiler:Greg]], before he dies, lets Sally and Downey know who killed him.
65	* DyingMomentOfAwesome: [[spoiler:After being portrayed as a useless slacker and ending up basically butchered by Mean Jess, Downey still musters enough strength to haul himself to the bathroom, open a water tap (so it makes sound even after he will be long dead) and writes his killer's name on the mirror]].
66	* EarWorm: "Anchors Aweigh" (especially in Glenn Miller's rendition) must be this for Jess.
67	* EasyAmnesia: Jess goes into an AmnesiaLoop by taking a nap in the cab and later on the yacht. She forgets everything that is going to happen. However, some vestigial memories remain which lead to her having deja vu moments upon entering the ship.
68	* EnclosedSpace: The crew being trapped on a GhostShip with a mysterious killer.
69	* EndlessCorridor: The ship features a couple.
70	* EverybodyDiesEnding: [[spoiler:Mean Jess]] asks this of Jess and eventually [[spoiler:this becomes true for every character but the cab driver]].
71	* EvilCostumeSwitch: Once [[spoiler:Jess]] decides to start killing the passengers, they change from their casual clothes into a mechanic's jumpsuit and hide their face behind a sack mask.
72	* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The story plays out within one day. [[spoiler:Or so it seems; the exact nature of time loop is unclear.]]
73	* FateWorseThanDeath: [[spoiler:Jess is stuck in a time loop (or purgatory, depending on your interpretation) in which she murders her friends and accidentally kills her son over and over again. Probably even worse is the fact that in the end she actually ''opts for it herself'', to some degree at least.]]
74	* TheFerryMan: The cab driver. Jess's promise to return to the taxi cab mirrors the promise Sisyphus made with Death. Read more about the mythological reference [[http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/sisyphus.html here]].
75	* FinalGirl: [[spoiler:Jess... sort of.]]
76	* FirstNameBasis: The main characters address each other by first name only: Downey, Greg, Heather, Jess, Sally, and Victor. No family name is ever given. Curiously, they are not that familiar with each other.
77	** Greg is a longtime friend of Downey and Sally, and the current employer of Victor. Jess seems to be a recent acquaintance, and he has never met Heather before.
78	** Victor was an 18-year-old vagrant who Greg took in as an employee and roommate. There is no real indication that he is particularly familiar with the rest of the crew.
79	** Downey and Sally are friends with Greg and Heather. They don't know or care much for either Jess or Victor.
80	** Heather is a friend of Sally, and an acquaintance to Downey. She doesn't know any of the others.
81	** Jess became acquainted with Greg at her workplace, but this seems to be the first time they spend any time together. She has no known previous interaction with Victor, and does not actually know any of the others.
82	* FishEyeLens: Used for some of Jess's SanitySlippage scenes.
83	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
84	** Tommy's capsized toy boat in the pool.
85	** Jess [[DreamingOfThingsToCome dreaming of herself stranded at the beach]].
86	** Greg points out to Jess: "But you can't be everywhere all of the times". [[spoiler:For most of the film, there are five versions of Jess roaming around the Aeolus.]]
87	** The mirror shot showing [[spoiler:three reflections of Jess at once.]]
88	** Yet another one from Greg: [[spoiler:"What is it? Is it Tommy? You feel guilty?"]]
89	** The record player on the ship, playing the broken record, mirroring a timeloop. Moreover, [[spoiler:Jess moves the needle backward on the record rather than forward, perpetuating the loop instead of moving beyond it.]]
90	** The painting of seagulls in Jess's kitchen. Also the seagulls that constantly follow the ship and Jess. [[spoiler: Jess accidentally kills a seagull just before the car accident that takes her son's life. Also, according to legend, killing a seagull or albatross is considered to be bad luck.]]
91	* FreezeFrameBonus: If you pause the film during the first fight between Jess and the killer, you can see [[spoiler:the killer wears Jess' distinctive sandals]].
92	* FutureMeScaresMe: [[spoiler:Jess throws the masked killer overboard which she later finds out is herself. The second time it happens the killer has even been unmasked, but the new Jess tries to kill her anyways.]]
93	* FutureSelfReveal: [[spoiler:Jess and her friends end up on an passenger ship and all but Jess are killed by a masked stranger. Jess gets caught in a time loop and eventually becomes the masked stranger when she realizes the only way she can get off the boat and back to her son is if she kills everyone on board and resets the loop.]]
94	* {{Futureshadowing}}:
95	** Somebody ringing the door bell at Jess', which later turns out to be [[spoiler:her future self]].
96	** Pretty much everywhere on the ship, on account of the loop.
97	* GhostShip: The Aeolus is deserted, its crew and passengers apparently long gone. The ship actually dates to TheThirties and there is a photo of it dating to 1932. An interesting spin on the trope is that there seems to be [[spoiler:no evil presence - or any presence at all, for that matter - on the ship apart from the characters we're already following (these might appear in unexpected different versions though). The ship itself is subtly implied to be sentient but its role in the events is basically limited to providing a fitting background for the plot to unfold - [[RuleOfSymbolism a symbolic one, too.]]]]
98	* GoldDigger: Sally expresses the belief that Jess is after Greg's money, and that her sob stories about an autistic son are part of an extortion plan.
99	* TheGrimReaper: [[spoiler:The black-clad taxi driver who ferries Jess back to the Triangle is implied to be a stand-in, especially considering how Jess's broken promise to pay him mirrors Sisyphus's broken promise to death.]]
100	* GroundhogDayLoop: Jess witnesses the death of her co-passengers from different views because apparently the whole situation starts all over again when they die. Different from the typical loop in that the sequence of events restarts, but the physical evidence of the previous iterations of the loop remain.
101	* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[spoiler:Mean Jess. She's part of the StableTimeLoop and eventually is murdered with an axe by unknown version of Jess [[note]](most likely the one that runs away from Shotgun Jess in the restaurant)[[/note]], but we never learn from where exactly she comes from and what is her backstory. It's only implied she's a version of Jess that lived through the "big" loop (boarding the yacht in the harbor) [[CynicismCatalyst a few times too many]] (possibly, to really rub it in, without amnesia) and got really desperate, but that's all]].
102	* HeroicBSOD: Jess has one in the ship's machine room, after her desperate attempt to stop the ship's movement by demolishing the wheels and cogs.
103	* HollywoodAutism: Tommy, son of Jess, is a mild example. He is a male child who is unable to live what most people would call a normal life. Otherwise his behavior is not that abnormal for a child, including an interest in painting, a tendency to leave his toys everywhere in the house, and leaving the occasional accidental mess when handling liquids.
104	* HooksAndCrooks: The SackheadSlasher on the ocean liner attacks Jess with a boot hook.
105	* HostileWeather: The sailing trip goes well until the weather becomes odd. The ship goes from a speed of 7 knots (8.055 miles /12.96 kilometers per hour) to 0 in mere seconds - a change which Greg, the only experienced sailor among them, quickly marks as strangely abrupt. Then some kind of strange electrical storm turns up on the horizon, heading their way. A quick communication with the coast guard establishes that there is no other report of any strange weather in the area.
106	* ICannotSelfTerminate: [[spoiler:Jess can't bring herself to shoot any version of herself until reaching the stage of being Killer Jess. What's more, the first thing she does when she gets a hold of a shotgun for the first time is openly contemplating suicide... which she of course doesn't go through with]].
107	* IHatePastMe: [[spoiler:Future Killer Jess, having gotten tossed off the boat, finds herself at the beginning of the day and sees herself [[AbusiveParents physically abusing]] and yelling at her kid. Hating what she used to be, and having long since had her share of JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope, she smashes her past self's head in and tries to take her place. Somehow this does not result in erasing herself from time, but sets up an [[HereWeGoAgain infinite loop]].]]
108	* IHaveAFamily: First thing that comes to Jess's mind when [[spoiler:the masked killer is about to shoot her is saying "I have a son". Which is the very reason why Killer Jess wants to kill Scared Jess and just go back home or at least allow one of the iterations of Jess to never end up trapped on the ship]]. And of course let's not forget [[spoiler:Tommy is dead at this point of the story anyway, making it all a (probably accidental) lie on part of amnesiac Original Jess and wishful thinking at best or outright insanity on part of Mean Jess]]. ItMakesSenseInContext.
109	* IdiotBall: Jess [[spoiler:during her Killer Jess phase. She quickly understands that she's in a time loop and tries to break it and after several failures, she comes up with a plan to stand on the boarding platform and stop the group from entering. It could very well work if she didn't purposefully run into the fight she had with herself in the first part of the movie even though she knows she will get thrown from the ship and obviously won't be able to break the loop. She could have let her past self run around and go to the platform or at least not do the same things she saw doing herself the first time. The only reason she does this seems to be to get her character back to the city and advance the plot. Though to be fair, in the end it's not clear if even the GoldenEnding of the ship loop would really be a game-changer, as the triggers of the big overall loop seem to lie elsewhere and Jess would probably eventually lose the memory of that solution anyway.]]
110	* ImpendingDoomPOV: Some shots on board the Aeolus are done this way, presenting the POV of Jess secretly observing the other passengers.
111	* InexplicableCorneredEscape: Happens when Sally is chased by "Mean" Jess across the GhostShip. At one point the camera is focused on Sally leaning against a wall, panting. Then the camera pans around to show Jess arriving at the same location a few seconds later. The camera pans back to where Sally was standing seconds ago... but she's gone.
112	* InMediasRes: It quickly becomes clear that the cast arrived in the middle of the loops on the ship. [[spoiler: But not until the ending do we realize that the entire movie from even before the ship scenes is actually this.]]
113	* IronicHell: [[spoiler:Everything Mean Jess has tried to do to get back to her son (killing her friends being one of them) has led to her being directly responsible for his death, starting the sequence all over again.]]
114	* ItWasHereISwear: When Jess wants to prove her point and show Victor the body of Downey floating in the water, it is gone.
115	* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: [[spoiler:Jess becomes progressively violent as she becomes more and more desperate to end the loop. It's implied that Mean Jess is just a more extreme case of the same condition.]]
116	* KillAndReplace: [[spoiler:After escaping the time loop, Mean Jess does this to herself, with the intention of being a better mother to her son, and (presumably) avoid the events leading up to the time loop. Unfortunately, the time loop still repeats with a dose of amnesia after her actions get her son killed.]]
117	* TheKillerInMe: Remarkable how the film blends together Amnesiac and Secretive varieties of this trope. [[spoiler:When Jess boards the Triangle, she knows she is gonna kill the other crew members at some point and [[IDidWhatIHadToDo actually intends to do it]]. Soon after, however, she suffers from LaserGuidedAmnesia and forgets all about her intentions - only to gradually come again to the conclusion that she ''will'' need to kill them, all while her other version (which may or may not have gone through an AmnesiaLoop of her own) is already doing just that. Upon killing everybody and then going through some other things, she eventually boards the Triangle ''[[StableTimeLoop again]]'', again intending to kill the crew - only to then again forget all about it, etc., etc.]] [[MindScrew Yes, it's that confusing.]]
118	* LostInTransmission: [[spoiler:Sally]]'s DistressCall received by Greg on the Triangle cuts off before any vital information can be exchanged.
119	* MadeOfPlasticine: In the midst of trying to convince Victor that they keep dying and coming back to start everything all over again, [[spoiler:Jess accidentally mortally wounds him by pushing him into one of the pointed hangers attached to the wall, which appears to puncture his skull to the point that brains fall out of the hole]].
120	* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Happens unintentionally. By virtue of the car crash, the corpse in the trunk turns from murder victim into casualty. [[spoiler:An equally plausible reading is that Jess actually died in that car crash, and the "surviving Jess" is really her disembodied soul in the hell/purgatory where the entire movie takes place.]]
121	* MalevolentMaskedMan: The passengers are attacked by a murderous psychopath hiding their face and identity behind a burlap sack mask. [[spoiler:It's a future iteration of Jess.]]
122	* MamaBear: To save her son Jess is willing to [[spoiler:kill her best friend and everyone else on the yacht. And when she comes across a third Jess mistreating him she murders ''her'']]. However, it's left very ambiguous by the revelation that [[spoiler:Jess had actually abused her son already, suggesting that she hates herself for it but can't stop.]]
123	* TheMatchmaker: Sally is not too subtly trying to be this for her single friends Greg and Heather. Greg is rather frustrated with the idea, and points out later that Sally keeps trying to bring him an eligible girl "every year". This subplot is dropped very quickly though, for the obvious reason that [[WeHardlyKnewYe the supposed match literally disappears early on]].
124	* MeaningfulEcho: Towards the end, once Jess exits the car, she suddenly hears that the marching band is playing "Anchors Aweigh" - same track as the one played on "Aeolus"... The WhamShot comes right after.
125	* MeaningfulName: The name of the ship, Aeolus, refers to a mythological Greek figure whose son, Sisyphus, was doomed by the gods to roll a boulder uphill for all eternity, where each time he reaches the summit the rock rolls over him and then back down again.
126	* MindScrew: You're gonna need multiple viewings to actually get everything, and even then you'll either be confused, thinking there's gonna be a sequel or that a sequel is impossible.
127	* MinimalistCast: The bulk of the story is told using five characters.
128	* MissedHimByThatMuch: Jess and later Sally successfully hide from [[spoiler:Mean Jess]] behind one of the many corners on the ship's [[TheMaze maze of corridors]].
129	* NarniaTime: Subverted. [[spoiler:Jess ends up back home where her son is still painting, but she's actually still stuck in the time loop.]]
130	* NoOSHACompliance: The sharp hook for rescue rings installed at head level. [[spoiler:This ends up being Victor's undoing.]]
131	* NothingIsScarier: Whatever happened to the original crew and passengers of the Aeolus is never explained. For all intents and purposes, a fully stocked but deserted cruise ship appears out of nowhere, and traps the protagonist in a GroundhogDayLoop.
132	* OminousVisualGlitch: In the scene where Jess listens to the broken record on the ship, the screen jitters in sync with the record needle jumping back and forth.
133	* OneWomanWail: During the dramatic confrontation at the ballroom between [[spoiler:rifle-armed Jess 2 and at her gunpoint Jess 1]].
134	* OneWordTitle: As the yacht is named "Triangle".
135	* OnceMoreWithClarity: The opening scene shows several brief snippets of Jess's morning. [[spoiler:We see this scene again toward the end of the film, and it becomes clear that the parts that were skipped over were Jess verbally and physically abusing her son - as well as that the snippets actually refer to two different versions of Jess and not to one and the same one throughout.]]
136	* OohMeAccentsSlipping: The movie features an entirely Australian and New Zealander cast trying their damnedest to sound like Americans. During the calmer scenes it almost works, but it becomes completely obvious the second a character feels the slightest pangs of emotion.
137	* OurSlashersAreDifferent: Sure, there's a SackheadSlasher killing people off in a ClosedCircle. But it's actually [[spoiler:Jess herself, who is trying to return to her son and/or punish herself for abusing and ultimately killing her son, depending on your perspective.]]
138	* PerpetualFrowner: Jess. She very, very rarely smiles, and when she does, it seems to be forced rather than a genuine smile.
139	* PoorCommunicationKills: Part of it is due to the perfectly understandable case of CassandraTruth, but still Jess never tries to fully explain or even ''demonstrate'' to her friends that there's a GroundhogDayLoop and that's why there's multiple Jess' running around. As a result, they're not sure if she's trying to help them or save them a couple of times and they think she's got some sort of split personality or is at the very least, crazy (which may be true, but for different reasons) and thus refuse to listen to her when she's trying to help them. Her plans as to her friends undergo [[TheKillerInMe a radical change after a couple of loops though]].
140	* PrecisionFStrike: Jess employs the F word several times during her TheReasonYouSuck speech directed to her son Tommy after he spills the paint.
141	* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Jess' journey from DamselInDistress to WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. [[spoiler: Only the journey seems to have actually first happened a good many loops before the beginning of the movie...]]
142	* PunkInTheTrunk: [[spoiler:Original Jess's]] corpse in the trunk of the car, which soon after becomes an accidental crash victim.
143	* ResetButton: Killing the other passengers is a sort of this. [[MindScrew Probably.]]
144	* RewatchBonus: Jess's strange behaviour in the beginning of the movie - especially her apologizing to Greg - makes much more sense in hindsight.
145	* RiddleForTheAges: [[spoiler:The second Jess got a totally different story which may or may not have influenced the first Jess to become the masked killer of her own story which can either be a PlotHole for the sake of the story or RiddleForTheAges for a sequel.]]
146	* RuleOfSymbolism: The "Mean Jess" ([[WordOfGod as she was nicknamed by the director]]) from the second loop [[spoiler: (the killer who was a lot more callous and brutal than the other Jesses)]] has a bullet skim the top of her head, causing blood to run down it. Later, [[spoiler:the "past" version of Jess who is seen abusing her son has blood running down her face in the exact same pattern, from the exact same spot.]]
147	* SackheadSlasher: Jess and her friends are stalked and murdered by a mysterious person wearing a burlap sack mask. [[spoiler:The killer is an iteration of Jess at a different point in the loop concealing her identity from herself and friends.]]
148	%%* SacrificialLamb: Heather.
149	* SafeBehindTheCorner: On the boat, Jess is looking for Sally who hides behind a corner, but Jess stops in her tracks and turns around before reaching said corner.
150	* SamusIsAGirl: [[spoiler:The masked slasher is actually Jess, a woman.]]
151	* SanitySlippage: Jess experiences this over the course of events on the GhostShip. One might be hard-pressed to determine whether and when she ever was "sane" to begin with though...
152	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: This is what Jess tries to do, [[spoiler:but she only creates another timeline which we don't see completely in the movie. More generally, in the end it turns out that this is what kept, keeps and will keep the plot as a whole in motion to begin with.]]
153	* ShoutOut:
154	** According to the commentary, the killer wearing a sack as a mask is a ShoutOut to ''Film/FridayThe13thPart2'', in which Jason Voorhees wears a pillow case over his head prior to the iconic hockey mask.
155	** The film makes many oblique references to ''Film/TheShining''. As seen several times through the film, there is a message written in blood on the mirror of room 237. The ''Aeolus'' is deserted as was the hotel. We see a ballroom and an ax at work.
156	** There is a seagull which constantly follows Jess around, and which she is revealed [[spoiler:to have killed in a traffic accident prior to the sailing trip]]. Per the director, this is an allusion to ''Literature/TheRimeOfTheAncientMariner''. The seagull is a stand-in for the albatross which the mariner killed, the event which set off his curse.
157	** Another allusion to the tale of Ancient Mariner is the weather pattern of the sailing trip of the ''Triangle''. Following the death of the albatross, the fair breeze blows and all seems right. Until they realize that the breeze led them to uncharted waters, and then that breeze fades to dead calm, trapping the ship of the Mariner.
158	** The Mariner and his companions also met a ghost ship in the poem. A ship with only a deathly-pale woman and Death as its only passengers. Notice how pale Jess looks for much of the film. As for the description of the woman in the poem: "''And is that Woman all her [ghost ship's] crew?/Is that a DEATH? and are there two?/Is DEATH that woman's mate?/Her lips were red, her looks were free,/Her locks were yellow as gold:/Her skin was as white as leprosy,/The Night-Mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,/Who thicks man's blood with cold.''"
159	** The music in the record that Jess listens to is a rendition of ''Anchors Aweigh'' by Glenn Miller and his band. Miller famously disappeared while flying over the English Channel in 1944, and the music is probably an allusion to the fact that Jess and her companions are not about to return.
160	** The original [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Sisyphus]], who Jess seems to imitate, is said in the film to have cheated death, though the characters fail to remember how. While there are several versions of his myth, there is one where he broke a promise to the death gods. His family failed to offer him proper funeral rights, and he convinced the death gods to offer him a second lease at life in order to prepare his own funeral. He promised to voluntarily return to the Underworld and then failed to do so. In Triangle, there is a sign which says ''Goodbye, Please Return'' and Jess later promises the cab driver (a ferryman like Charon?) that she will come back to him and pay for her ride. Which she doesn't actually intend to do.
161	* SlashedThroat: [[spoiler:Downey, in the second time loop. This doesn't kill him straight away, and he ends up being stabbed repeatedly by Jess. He lives long enough to attempt to [[DyingClue scrawl the name of his killer]] in [[CouldntFindAPen his own blood]], but dies partway through.]]
162	* SoftGlass: Played absolutely straight, even if there is just no way for Vic to break through the plexiglass with nothing more than the weight of his body - he would sooner get few bruises and bounce off than smash it. It's used on sailboats precisely due to the durability against blunt impact and general resistance. [[spoiler:It exists solely to fill the yacht with water.]]
163	* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler:Heather]] in [[http://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1c85x2/triangle_this_is_the_mindfuck_film_you_missed_out/ this]] interpretation. The interpretation being [[spoiler:the whole group is actually dead and only Heather survived the accident on sea.]]
164	* SpoilerCover: One of the most widespread posters [[spoiler:subtly hints Jess is the masked killer by simply putting a mirror image in a poodle of blood. By itself it affects nothing, but quickly turns into a massive suggestion during the movie]]. But absolutely nothing beats one of the posters used on leaflets that consists of [[spoiler:exhausted and bloodied Sally sitting right next to entire pile of mutilated Sallies, some of them already decomposing, with word "Triangle" written at the bottom]].
165	* StableTimeLoop: [[spoiler:Jess comes to the harbor looking dazed and eventually ends up being on the mysterious ship and throws a masked killer overboard. She realizes the GroundhogDayLoop of the events on the ship and tries to break the chain by killing herself becoming the masked killer and getting thrown overboard. She drifts back to the shore where she is able to hitchhike back home seeing herself with her son. She kills her other self and wants to dispose of the body which results in a car accident killing her son. She gets on a taxi to go to the harbor. She comes to the harbor looking dazed and eventually ends up being on the mysterious boat, etc. etc. etc. Note that the time loops on the ship are ''not'' always stable, but in the end that matters little because the main, overarching loop ''is''.]]
166	* StoppedClock: The clocks on board the ship are stuck at 8:17 a.m. signifying the time of the car accident. Same goes for Jess's wrist watch.
167	* TemporalSuicide: The movie involves [[spoiler:various versions of Jess killing the other versions]].
168	* ThrowingYourGunAtTheEnemy: [[spoiler:Mean Jess]] throws her shotgun at Jess when she runs out of ammunition.
169	* TookALevelInBadass: [[spoiler:Mean Jess]], having gone through an HeroicBSOD and subsequent FaceHeelTurn, becoming a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.
170	* TrunkShot: Shot on Jess's face from within the trunk of her car [[spoiler: where she loads the corpse]].
171	* UnresolvedSexualTension: Jess and Greg, though exactly how sexual it is could be up to debate.
172	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: At one point Greg mentions that he decided to invite Jess to the sailing trip on an impulse. The previously smiling Jess stares at him and then adopts a sullen expression. [[spoiler:One view of this scene is that she just realized that Greg and his impulse unwittingly set off the events leading to the time loop and all the carnage involved - though she should have already lost those memories by that time.]]
173	* VehicleTitle: ''Triangle'' is the name of Greg's yacht. It's also a not-so-subtle allusion [[TheBermudaTriangle to this place]].
174	* VillainProtagonist: From one point of view, anyway.
175	* WeHardlyKnewYe: Due to the time loop, viewers meet several versions of each main character [[spoiler:except Heather, who is lost at sea before the main events begin. She is only there for the introductory scenes.]]
176	* WhamShot: [[spoiler:It seems like Jess finally broke the loop and is driving away with her son. Then, suddenly, a seagull flies into the windscreen, dying instantly. A shaken Jess leaves the car and goes to dispose of the body on the beach...]] Then Jess sees [[spoiler:the pile of seagull corpses, and realizes this isn't the first time she's done this]]. The movie rushes to its DownerEnding right after.
177	* WhiteShirtOfDeath: Both Greg and Downey sport white shirts which later get drenched in blood.
178	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse; What happened to Heather after their ship capsized? [[spoiler:Other than the surviving suspecting she survived, got on the cruise, and dropped her keys (which was done by Jess by the way), we never know whether she survived, died, or became part of the time anomaly.]]
179	* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Justified. [[spoiler:Mean Jess hesitates to pull the trigger on her other self on the deck. Naturally, this leads to the other Jess escaping the assault.]]
180	* YankTheDogsChain: On a rewatch we suddenly realize that the ''entire movie'' up to the WhamShot is this.

Context Film / Triangle