Review: Cube (1997)

This week, since I’m still awaiting the U.S. premiere of The White Queen (which I will begin reviewing next Tuesday), I decided to go back and take a look at a movie that will forever remain in my heart as a classic of low-budget suspense.  Cube was the first full feature from writer-director Vincenzo Natali, and though he’s probably done nothing else most have heard of, he is supposedly attached to an upcoming Neuromancer adaptation along with the Swamp Thing reboot.  He does undoubtedly have a very unique cinematic style that captures viewers with its dark simplicity.

Cube itself was made on a budget that could barely buy a house these days, a grand total of just $375,000, and those are 1997 dollars.  They used just one cube room and only a single working doorway to make the entire flick, using lighting changes and other tricks to make it look like the characters are climbing through an entire complex.  The end result was a cult classic of suspense that some love and some hate (the moderate score of 61/74% at Rotten Tomatoes attests to that), but no one can dispute the pure simplicity and creativity of it.

The basic story is this - five people wake up in a cube-shaped room.  No one knows where they are, how they got there or why they ended up there in first place.  The room has a small exit in the center of each wall and on the ceiling and floor.  As the group moves from room to room, they discover that some are trapped, as in fatally.  Eventually, they discover that each person seems to have an ability that, when combined, gives them the answer to their death-trap puzzle.

The entire cube structure is made up of more than 17,000 small rooms, some trapped and most not.  Numbers on the doorways give clues to the safe ways to go, though only the autistic kid in the group can decipher them.  As they make their way to the one moving room that seems to be an elevator out, infighting causes even more tension and eventually, though most die, there is a successful escape… sort of.

The glory of Cube is that it manages to take very little and, through good directing and camera work, turn it into a lot.  An unknown background, a lack of knowledge of what’s actually happening and an ending that explains basically nothing only add to the suspense.  This indie flick is engaging enough to be an easy watch, even if you don’t end up having the same love for it that I do.  I do recommend that you give it a chance though.

Unfortunately, people tried to expand off the movie’s cult success by creating both a sequel and a prequel.  These two films flesh out the reason behind the cube, though new writers and new directors don’t bring the same level of expertise that Natali did to the first one.  And, in my opinion, all the explanations only take away from the film rather than making it more interesting.  Watch the first, but don’t expect more than some nifty new traps for the other two.

Photo Credits -           

Cube courtesy of movieboozer.com