Cube
When I first heard about Cube, I immediately thought “Please don’t let this be another film like Event Horizon.”, because personally I found the use of a science-fiction setting to stage such a poorly thought out, unoriginal horror film absolutely abominable! So it was with great pleasure and relief that Cube turned out to be what all little Event Horizons can only wish to be when they grow up.
To quote David Baddiel when he commented on Michael Marshall Smith’s novel Spares: “Some books stretch the imagination. This one mugs it.” I couldn’t have said it any better to describe Cube. A movie which definitely mugs your imagination. Cube runs at 92 minutes, and you feel every second of it. This effect you will either relish or hate. It grates on your psyche, as you experience the claustrophobic nature of the Cube, and the way it affects the natures of 6 very different people who are trapped within it. At times, I found myself wondering what was the more claustrophobic: The Cube itself, or the behaviour of the people as they fight against the Cube, against each other, and against their own hopes and fears.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of Cube, in a nutshell it’s the story of 6 people trapped in a network of interconnected cubes, which all together form a single, gigantic Cube. Some cubes are safe, while others are riddled with deadly traps. In this way, the Cube becomes a maze of life and death. The 6 people who are forced to endure the Cube each have their own unique talents, but it’s up to them whether these talents are used to aid their escape, or to drive them deeper into the claustrophobia of their own minds.
If it isn’t already advertised as such, then Cube should be said to be a brutal, claustrophobic, nerve-wracking bit of a head-fuck. There were times in the film where I felt myself being trapped in there, and there is one particular scene (you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it) where I don’t think anyone in the audience was breathing. This film just has that kind of effect on you, whether you like the effect or not. Cube achieves everything it sets out to achieve, and I thought it worked on every level.
So as Molly Meldrum would say, do yourselves a favour, use the “buy one get one free” pass that you received when you joined the Film Society during O-Week, and experience Cube. That old Rubik puzzle everyone has in the back of their wardrobe will never be looked at in the same way again.
Thorsten Gehrke
