Horrorfest 2011: Cube

Like [REC], I went into CUBE a little prejudiced. Ever since CUBE hit the new release wall in 1997, it has been one of those movies friends and acquaintances tell me they've "discovered" and that I have to see. I was always reluctant because it seemed like one of those movies that relied a little too heavily on its premise -- a group of strangers wake up in a mysterious cube shaped maze made of booby trapped rooms and have to figure their way out of there. I mean, once you know that, what else is there to know? I can see sitting through 25 minutes of a TWILIGHT ZONE episode, but an entire feature film?

Anyway, I've finally seen it. I have to say, even though the premise is gimmicky, it was not the film's undoing. The film's undoing was basically everything else.

To be fair, we're dealing squarely in the realm of low budget filmmaking, here, so you have to at least give these guys credit for coming up with an interesting idea for a puzzle and a credible solution to that puzzle. The movie doesn't rely on cheating or withholding clues from the audience. The central mystery makes sense, basically, even if the existence of the "cube" itself could probably never be satisfactorily explained. To the movie's credit, it doesn't do much in the way of trying to explain. Wise move.

Unfortunately, clever ideas do not a good film make. They help. But they have to have backup. And there's not much in the way of backup here. The whole movie is shot, edited and designed about on par with a syndicated sci-fi show of the era. Even the music, what little there is, is laughable in its attempt to be mysterious. There are a couple effects that belong in the majors, including some nifty gore moments, but these are few and far between and most of what we're stuck with is a series of stock sci-fi rooms (actually one set redressed a bunch of times). I mean, that's the premise -- characters stuck in a cage. But, at least make the cage interesting.

The acting is also wildly uneven with a cast of mostly unlikable characters. Normally I don't like to shit on actors because they're at the mercy of so many variables it's hard for anyone to really know who's a "good" actor and who's a "bad" actor without being on set to see what went down, but there was clearly no one on this production charged with the task of making these poor bastards look good. The cliche ridden dialogue offers nothing interesting for them to say and the director's primary performance note seems to have been, "Yell more!" When you're stuck with one set, you've got to do better than that.

Our cast includes Maurice Dean Wint as an angry cop, David Hewlett as an angry office worker, Nicky Guadagni as an angry doctor, and Wayne Robson as an angry escape artist. They're all angry. Got that? Of these, Wint has the most heavy lifting to do as his character goes through the most changes, but he seems to play it all on about the same level, robbing the movie of some momentum along the way. I was hoping for a good death scene for Guadagni early on since she seemed to be the worst offender in the yelling contest. Robson doesn't get much screen time and Hewlett is probably the most likable of the bunch if only because he seems to hate the movie about as much as I did.

Of special note is Nicole de Boer, who plays a high school (or college?) math whiz. I say special note because she's cute as hell. You might remember her as the second Dax from DEEP SPACE NINE. I mean, if you're a nerd, like me. And if you're watching CUBE, you probably are.

Just when you think things can't get any more unintentionally hilarious, Andrew Miller shows up as a mentally challenged individual. I'll leave it up to your imagination as to whether or not he has a super secret, borderline magical, special skill. Sheesh.

The movie does eventually manage to get around to ratcheting up some tension towards the end, after a long slow wind up, and it is fairly clear there was a genuinely good movie buried in here somewhere. A couple more rewrites, maybe a little more attention given to the actors, a little moody lighting, and we might have had something.

Now that I've seen CUBE I'm a little confused as to how it has gathered the following that it has. It is among the highest voted horror movies on IMDB. I think it might be the result of a phenomenon where people embrace it because it wasn't a pre-packaged thing that was marketed to death and shoved onto the movie going public. It's something people found for themselves. And, once found, it was slightly more interesting than your average low budget sci-fi horror flick. So, back in 1997 it must have been a rewarding experience to rent it on a whim and have your mind blown, relatively speaking.

I guess maybe I should have watched it 14 years ago when I had the chance.