We move up to 83% movies with the introduction of this Sci-Fi horror mystery movie that may or may not give you all the answers you want. This was a very low budget movie made on a budget of $350k but it went on to return $9m from the box office which has to been seen as a huge success. It did then spawn a couple of sequels but I am not going to go there as I haven’t entertained them so I cannot comment. For this movie it was released within its budget and steadily grew into the cult following it has today. In critic terms neither of the usual suspects like this one as much I do with IMDb giving it a 7.2 out of 10 and a 63% score from the Rotten Tomatoes mob. The spoilers of this movie will be really easy to stumble on so I will try an be really careful as I dive into some form of plot description.
You start by watching a man called Alderson being killed in a strange cube shaped to room. You then see people waking up in a similar shaped room there are five people in there. Quentin, Worth, Holloway, Leaven and Rennes. Not one of them knows how they got there. Quentin tells the group that some rooms contain traps which he has found from travelling from room to room. Rennes who is a convict who has escaped seven prisons who thinks he has cracked it by setting off the motion detectors by throwing his boots tethered by its laces. Dropping it into the room if nothing happens its safe if a trap is fired and he can bring the boot back all well and good. If the boot is destroyed he has another one that he can continue with. They have seven options in each room you can go through one of the small hatch doors at the centre of the walls. You can climb to the same type of door on the roof or you can simply open the same type of door in the centre of the floor. The final option is do nothing and remain in the room that you are in if you are safe then you could choose to stay put and not move. Every so often there is a tremor that shakes the whole room. The group then set about working out why the hell they are in there and what do they need to do to escape with their lives. Will they stay together as a team or will in battling do them in.
I stumbled onto this movie and I am trying to remember when and how. I was probably told or sold on the idea of it being a horror movie and then rented a video or something like that. What gripped me was the whole mystery of what, how, where and more so why. They find different clues and discover that each of them may have a specific reason for being in there and also if they combine those specific reasons (and talents) they might be able to calculate a way out of this giant squared room maze of death traps and confusion. This was a real head scratcher and confusing to the characters and the audience a like. This can really drag you into the story and get your own wild conspiracy theory planners busy talking for days. If this was brought out now there would be chat rooms dedicated to it and the sequel would be rushed out inside a year. It was and I have no idea how long the sequel took to be born. What I do remember is this movie was fundamentally made in one and a half rooms. With clever visual tricks the one room is lit in different colours which is the difference between each room. One is white, another blue and another green, is that a hint to whether they are safe or not? This really highlights that you need imagination for real story telling not a huge budget and explosions and over elaborate stories that contradict themselves before they conclude or simply make no sense from one part to the next. This was a simple idea put people in a room and see how they communicate, come together, speak together and ultimately how they work together. When you switch this movie on for the first time to watch it please remember that this was made in a studio with one and a half rooms in it and they rotated the rooms (or just the angle of the camera shot) to make this story come to life. Enjoy it and then make a comment below if you worked it out before the reveal.
Next up is a kids cartoon, yes it is a movie in the top 100 and it’s a kids movie…
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