Cube
Cult audiences are a remarkable bunch of people. There are plenty of words thrown around with quirky and weird movies that spark of “instant cult classic” despite the fact that it has been around for about a day. In essence a cult cannot form until a few years, where an audience have spread their love for an under heard film and have exploded it to be greatly received and circuited around groups. True, you can see how the audience will expand. For example, Jupiter Ascending is going to have many people chanting about bees and imitating Eddie Redmayne in that raspy yet over the top undertone. But that’ll take years until we can establish it as a truly formidable cult classic such as The Room.
What I’m trying to say, in this rather pithy introduction, is that it’s really hard to box in cult movies. Which is ironic because that’s exactly what Cube does to its characters. And yes, that was a heavy handed way of squeezing in a pun.
Cube is a Canadian horror movie by Vincenzo Natali who had created equally squeamish movies such as Splice and played a part in The ABCs of Death. Here, he’s 1998 film revolves around a group of six people who wake up one day in a steal box that is actually part of an intricate system in the titular cube. However, trying to find their way out is tricky. Because if one box is safe, then sure enough another will kill you with no forewarning. They must find a way out before they are left to suffer by an unknown force.
It’s the premise that has probably found its largest audience. Definitely a precursor to complex horror films such as Saw, the wildly elaborate set up is teaming with tension and endless possibilities which effects the characters in this superb take on paranoia and survival. The idea, however, is unmatched with the unravelling. Sandwiching several strangers into a massive boogie trap that spits acid in your face if you enter the wrong box takes its toll. Especially when police officer Quentin acts like he is in charge. The entire film then plays out like a social experiment as the team clamber through and each’s background is divulged. As stressors are added, mounting the despair and the irritation, the story and characters become undone in this evocative and intellectual way that wraps tiresome rings around the team’s eyes and eats away at their will to survive. It’s the pressure and the fear that eclipses them and the shadow it casts grows longer with each body they lose. Rather than play on the gruesomeness of the torture, though it is in abundance, Natali and his team of writers wield it like a case study of humanity when it is put in tentative life threatening situations.
True, the performances are remarkably over the top. But this is a nineties horror movie that revels in its absurdity and premise. In some ways, the extra level of emotion and passion given by the actors who are Nicole de Boer, Nicky Guadagni, Wayne Robson, David Hewlit, Maurice Dean Wint and Andrew Miller help levitate the film. What works in the somewhat hammy performances is desperation and terror which pushes their characters towards the edge. Some are better than others at undercutting their character with intricateness and delicate moments (de Boer and Dean Wint are a little stifled in their dialogue delivery), but they still translate the tiresome fear bouncing around their minds and pulsating in the sweaty strained atmosphere.
Cube has recently had a remake announced by the brilliant studio Lionsgate and, I never thought I’d say this, but I see it working. However, the producers and directors need to drawn the line. You can have gruesome elements but Natali knew that the story is about desperation in its crazed and paranoid way rather than how much blood you could splash on the screen. Be innovative with the cube and its traps, but don’t be boxed in by them either.
And yes, I may be a bit square in bringing that pun around again. But I was stuck in a corner.
I’ll stop now. It’s probably not the angle I want to end on….