Vincenzo Natali’s Cube is a masterpiece, not only of low-budget sci-fi horror, but of cinema in general. It is common knowledge that a great story must be told as simply as possible without undue complexity. This means, if a situation is complex, show it as being such but if it is naturally simplistic, allow it be so just that. With Cube, it is its simplicity which gives the work a breath of fresh air and allows the work to express many, many ideas about the philosophical horrors of life and how various people choose to attempt to navigate through it.
The film opens with a close-up of a blinking eye fluttering to consciousness. The camera pans back to reveal a lone man drab scrub-like clothing, reminiscent of a prisoner’s outfit, being only the nametag Alderson on his left breast, as he awakens in a small room (14 by 14 feet). He gets up and, as he looks around, the camera pans around him to reveal that all of the walls, including the ceiling and floor, hosts the same pattern of motherboard circuitry with the exception of a square in the center of each pane. He walks over and turns the handle in the center of one of the panels. A ambiance of gears actives as the panel pops forward and drops down to reveal a small shaft which leads into another room, exactly like the one he has found himself, with the exception of a divergent color scheme. He man turns back and the panel mysteriously activates itself and closes of its own accord. The man then goes to the panel in the floor to discover yet the same, only this time the adjoining room is malevolent red. He tries another panel but with this one, he enters into the shaft and closes into the next room. He drops down into the room to be greeted with a sterile silence. As he walks toward the center of the room, a swooping snap is heard, the man arcs his back, and thin lines of blood form a grid along the man’s entire body. As the cubes of flesh give way to gravity, a metal cage, its bars comprised of razor thin (as well as sharp) wire descend into view before it folds itself up and resets itself somewhere in the walls of the room.
Thus begins Cube. After the opening credits roll, we are met by Leaven (Nicole de Boer), a math student, Holloway (Nicky Guadagni), a medical doctor, Worth (David Hewlett), an architect/engineer, Rennes (Wayne Robson), a criminal, and Quentin (Maurice Dean Wint), a police officer. Before any of them have time to get acquainted, Rennes is discovered to be the famed escape artist of various high-security prisons and quickly designates that the enclosure in which they have found themselves is a yet another prison and that the traps, which Quentin was almost victim to off screen, fills the maze. Tension fills the air. He reasons that since there is no evidence of provisions, that escape is their only chance for survival and proceeds to enter into the nearest room. Of course, Rennes quickly falls prey to a trap, which leaves the remaining four time to attempt to rationalize about their newfound predicament.
No one can remember how he or she arrived in the maze nor why they would be the ones chosen after being unable to find a pattern to their professions (no one notices that their names are all titles of famous prisons). As desperation ensues and, in the face of the constant threat of instant death, patience begins to dwindle from all sides, it is discovered that numeric labels line the shafts connecting the rooms. Leaven then realizes that, though everyone else’s personal effects had been removed prior to their insertion into the maze, her glasses were left on her. The group deduces that perhaps the traps are signaled via numbers which Leaven is suppose to interpret (rooms whose numbers consist of prime numbers are quickly deemed dangerous). An autistic man by the name of Kazan (Andrew Miller) enters the group to the voiced and unvoiced disappointment of one and all.
Shortly thereafter, Worth discloses that he designed part of the structure which imprisons them, yet only the outer shell. He cannot account for who is responsible, after the group conjectures the possibility of aliens, government, military, big money’s perverse pleasure, etc. as guilty parties, because people contacted people who contacted him and, after hundreds of engineering projects, he didn’t second guess the next assignment on the roster. The hostilities of Holloway and Quentin, both victims of overwrought sexual and racial tension, continue to mount, further pressurizing the anxieties of the group.
As mortal peril reenters the equation after Leaven quickly surmises that the numeric labels are actually Cartesian coordinates, markers for the location of each room in the grid of 17,576 and not indicators to death traps, the group then proceeds haphazardly to the end of the shell. After reaching the end, which merely opens to a chasm of nothingness, Quentin angrily dispatches Holloway in order to rid himself of the frustration of death looming directly over them once more. Quentin attempts to seduce Leaven prior to further relieving his frustration via Worth. Desperation and futility now predominate when Worth deduces that the periodic shifting heard and mysteriously felt throughout the duration of the film is the regular reorganization of the rooms within the monumental framework. It is theorized that the numbers are permutations and that Room 27 is a bridge to the outside world. However, this does not designate which rooms are trapped, which are revealed to be powers of a prime. Leaven’s mental capacities do not extend that far but, miraculously, Kazan’s do.
The group runs to the bridge after leaving Quentin behind and, right when freedom is in view, Quentin reappears, attempting to kill Worth and succeeding in murdering Leaven. But . . .
For those of you unfamiliar with the film, I will not reveal the ending (any more then I will reveal the ingenuity of the various traps, though they are a minor effect in relation to the scope of the film) because, for all of the theory involved: existential, quantum, sociological, Freudian, even theological, the ending can be seen from many, many perspectives which, even the merest outline might predispose you to premature judgment. Needless to say, after the film’s release, the ending was one of the more focused upon items for discussion in chat rooms and discussion boards.
The plot sounds complicated, especially for those unfamiliar with number theory, but the manner in which Natali constructs the script it is not necessary to have even basic algebra in order to understand the tensions and dilemmas of the characters involved. As I opened this review, the work is ingenious in its simplicity and that is were its power lies. Natali’s work serves as a parable for the nightmare of reality in its many guises and, depending on how you interpret that ambiguous ending, reveals your perspective of the human predicament.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
