Cube (1997)

Episode 185, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  Alright. Today’s movie is 1997’s Cube, a, Canadian film that was shot pretty cheaply. Like, I don’t even think it cost a half a $1,000,000. However, it did gross quite a bit of money, spawned a few sequels, and is a bit of a cult following, wouldn’t you say?

Craig:  Yeah. Apparently. Because I think it did pretty well internationally in theaters. Like, I don’t think it made much of an impact in the States, but I think it grossed something like close to $9,000,000 or something like that internationally. But, yeah, it wasn’t until it kinda gained that cult following that they went forward with, a sequel and the prequel. So there are 3 of them out there.

Todd:  Yeah. 3 of them out there. Have you seen all 3, Craig? I have this feeling that you’re gonna say yes.

Craig:  Yep. I’ve seen all 3. They’re good. I don’t remember when I saw the first 1. It came out 97. That’s the year I graduated high school. I don’t think that I saw it that early, but I did see it and I liked it from the first viewing. And I’ve actually sat and watched it a few times probably and, the sequels, I liked Todd.  The second 1, I can only imagine was shot on a little bit bigger budget because it seemed more high-tech, and, I remember liking it. I I don’t remember the details about the sequel or the prequel except for that the prequel went into a little bit more about the origins of the concept and and that kind of stuff. But, I remember enjoying all of them, and I was excited to do this 1. I feel like we’ve talked about doing it several times, and we’ve had at least 1 request for it. And so when we were deciding what we wanted to do today, we thought we would, jump in since it was request. And watching it again, I I still thought it was good. I don’t know that it’s necessarily aged as well as some things that we’ve seen, but, I think that the strongest thing about the movie is the premise. I think it’s a really interesting premise and 1 that works really well for a semi low budget movie because, really, the entire thing is shot on 115 by 15 by 15 square foot set.  Like, the the whole the whole thing is is is literally shot in 1 room. Of course, through movie magic, they make you seem like it’s, a lot of different rooms, but in reality, it was just 1. It plays pretty well. I I think it’s a a pretty cool concept.

Todd:  You know, I read in the trivia online, I think it was in the Wikipedia entry that the old Twilight Zone episode 5 characters in search of an exit was the initial inspiration for this movie. And that is 1 of my all time favorite Twilight Zone episodes, where 5 characters who seem are seemingly unrelated with different jobs and different roles suddenly wake up and don’t remember how they got there. But they find themselves in a very, very small place and are looking for a way out. And that’s really what this is all about. This is this like you said, this cubed room, that then has 4 6 hatches in it, 1 for each side Mhmm. In the middle. And, you can climb to eat you know, to the ceiling. You can drop through the floor, and it leads to another cubed room.  Yep. And as we learn out later in the movie that there are a lot of these rooms all connected into 1 giant cube.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  So the movie is aptly titled. And so that’s really, I think it’s a very premise driven movie. They do some interesting things with characterization in here. I have to say, well, it was interesting reading a little bit about the history of the development of the script on Wikipedia. Vincenzo Natale is the writer director.

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  And he had this initial inspiration, to set it, make a film set in hell, which is kind of where these characters find themselves in. Right? Not literally, but, you know, you’re trapped. And you can’t get out, and you may never ever get out. And there was going to be cannibal in here, some edible moss that grew in the walls, this real concern that they had to eat and drink that would be an aspect of the film, and some kind of monster that roamed throughout. The guy eventually credited as the writer for the film. His name is Andre Bijelic. And this is the only thing that we can see that he’s done. Helped him strip this down and just kinda make it this bare premise, which probably works a little bit better and certainly a lot easier to shoot because the way that they denote these different rooms in the cube from 1 to another is just they change the color of the walls.  Right. They’re all lit from behind, with gels. And so, apparently, they shot all the ones that would take place in red rooms first, and then they changed the gels to green, shot all the scenes that would take place in a green room next, and and kind of shot the movie in that order. But, yeah. Like you said, it’s a real easy way to save some bucks. But, again, it’s a very premise driven movie. It’s an interesting premise. It’s an interesting concept.  Yeah. And then they try to characterize throw some characters in. I I think for me, this isn’t really my favorite film. I think the thing that really holds it back for me is the character development

Craig:  Sure.

Todd:  And the acting. I I feel like some of the acting’s just a little overblown, especially by our 1 character who kinda turns evil. I couldn’t really get behind him. I felt he was really just hamming it up the whole time.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  I remembered that from the first time I saw this. I think the first time I saw this was back in 97, 98. This is only the second time I’ve seen it. But that’s the 1 thing I remembered about this movie the most was this 1 actor is totally hamming it up. And, it took me out of it quite a bit. It made it seem like a lower budget production even than it really was. So Yeah.

Craig:  I, yeah, I can I can see that? And I think that you’re right. Critics were were kind of mixed, you know. It got some praise that even won, a few awards, but the critics who had some problems with it kind of felt the same way that you did with though it’s an interesting premise, it’s lacking a little bit in characterization and, some people are a little bit disappointed that the you never really know what’s going on.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  I mean I mean, these characters speculate as to what might be happening to them and why. And there’s a tiny little bit of very foggy explanation, but ultimately, you never know. Like you said, these these and that’s how it opens up. The the the first thing we see is this guy wakes up in this room, just this big square room, and it looks like the design reminds me of the puzzle box from

Todd:  Oh, yeah. Hellraiser. The around the outside.

Craig:  Like, if you were inside. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s cool.

Craig:  Like, if you’re inside that box, that’s that’s what I kind of imagine it looking like. And this guy, you know, he wakes up alone. We don’t know anything about him. He he looks around and he eventually opens up 1 of those hatches, and, he goes into the next room. And he’s standing there and we just hear kind of this quick noise, kind of the swooshing noise, and then almost all of a sudden, he just starts to fall apart. And as it turns out, he’s been sliced, huge, or diced, or whatever you wanna call it, by this wire trap. And then it cuts to the title, and then we have we see another guy asleep in this room, seemingly the same room, but we find out, of course, later that it’s not. And somebody else comes into the room, and they’re all dressed in, like, these kind of industrial, like, overalls that have their last names printed on them.  And right away, which also may kind of be a weakness, I I guess you could say because everything happens really quickly in the beginning. All of our principal characters come together, and nobody knows why they’re there. Nobody knows where they are. They can’t remember how they got there, but they’re seemingly trapped in there. And then it just becomes kind of this, character study of what it would be like if you were trapped kind of in this rat maze with a bunch of strangers who you know nothing about. So there are, of course, trust issues. And and that was 1 of the things that I thought was interesting about the movie too is that we, as the audience, are as in the dark as the people in the movie. Just like the people in the movie, you just kinda have to believe what people tell you because what choice do you have?

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  The the main guy that you were talking about that ends up kind of becoming I mean, ultimately, the device, the cube itself, and the entity, whatever it is behind it is, I guess, kind of the antagonist, but really it becomes more of just a human nature thing where

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  The 1 guy that you were talking about, Quentin, he kinda starts to lose it as it becomes kind of Todd of the flies, every man for himself Yeah. Kind of deal. But this guy, Quentin, intro when he does introduce himself, he tells them that he is a cop. They just roll with it. And I I thought that it was good that through the whole movie, I was wondering, is this guy really a cop? Because I don’t know if I buy it.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah.

Craig:  We we never find out if he is or not. He doesn’t handle pressure very well. No.

Todd:  He missed that bit of training. Yeah. For sure. Right. Like, and he keeps, you know, spouting off something that has might have been better spoken by action, which is I can read people like a book. Like, I can just stare at someone’s eyes and I know who they are, which isn’t actually quite true. But he’s convinced of it. And he just is, like I said, kind of over the top from the very beginning.  I think 1 thing that maybe makes it more convincing that he’s a cop is he immediately recognizes 1 of the other characters, an older guy named Ren. I don’t believe it. This guy’s the wren.

Clip:  The what?

Todd:  He’s the wren. The bird abattaca flew the coup on 6 major prisons.

Clip:  7. You’re kidding, right? You can get us out. Maybe. An escape artist.

Todd:  Yeah. Harry fucking Houdini.

Craig:  And and that’s the thing. Like, they all come together, and there are 6 of them. Not including the guy that we saw get killed right at the beginning. And in fact, that guy that we get see killed right at the very beginning, they never come across him.

Clip:  So we don’t

Craig:  even know that guy could have been in this place in an entirely different time. We have no idea, but there’s 6 of them. There’s Quentin. He’s either black or Hispanic, and and he’s, like, the tough guy. There’s Worth, who is this younger looking guy. He, from the very beginning, I thought was kind of shady. Like, he claims that he’s a little bit out of it because he hit his head or something.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  But he’s just initially pretty quiet. And then there’s a lady whose last name is Holloway, and she appears to be pretty transparent. Yeah. Yeah. She claims that she’s a doctor, and and I believe her. I don’t know. She’s got some kind of accent. I couldn’t really figure out where she was from.  Then, another a younger girl. And when I say younger, I don’t mean like a child, like

Todd:  Like college age.

Craig:  Twenties. Yeah. Yeah. And her name is Levin. And it turns out that she’s kind of this math whiz. Ren, who you mentioned, who is who who supposedly is an expert at breaking out of places, and and we meet all of them first. But I did think that it was funny because Wren comes into the picture and immediately kind of keeps them moving along. And I feel like everybody else kind of follows him just because they don’t know what else to do.  Mhmm. He has figured out that some of these rooms are trapped, and he’s using his shoes, his boots. He tosses them in the room to see if a trap gets triggered. And if it doesn’t get triggered, then they assume that they can proceed. And right away, he opens 1 hatch and he says, oh, wait a minute. The air smells funny in here. I think it’s some kind of, like, biochemical triggered trap, which I don’t know about prisons. I’ve never been in 1, but I didn’t know that any of them might have had, like, biochemical sensors.  But apparently, maybe they do because this guy Yeah. Knows about it. I found it kind of funny and ironic that this guy who’s, you know, the expert at breaking out of places, he then immediately gets dispatched.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  I don’t remember why. What was it? There there was something that he didn’t see coming. Some trap that he didn’t

Todd:  He leaped in there, and, there was a spray on his face. And he goes, mared. Uh-huh. And it’s some spray comes into his face. And I guess they decided it might have either been a sound, bass trap, or something. I don’t know exactly what it was. But, yeah, he ends up triggering this trap. He gets sprayed in the face.  They pull him back in, and he completely loses his face. It’s probably the goriest thing that we see in the movie aside from the the intro Right. With that guy who just falls into pieces. He’s immediately out of the picture. It’s kinda funny, like you said, because he’s supposed to be the expert, and he’s the first 1 to go. It’s it’s pretty smart writing.

Craig:  Right. And it it increases the tension a little bit because these other people are just Joe Schmoes. You know? They don’t know anything. And it’s not as though I feel like what the movie tries to do and it fails a little bit is they’re kind of trying to throw these various characters together so that any 1 of them is kind of an every man. Like, I I think that you’re supposed to kinda think, oh, well, if they could be in there, it could be me. The the characters have discussions about why are we here? Why us? What is this? What is the purpose of this thing? And as much as they kind of philosophize about it

Todd:  There’s little basis for it.

Craig:  Right. They they they theorize, but they don’t know. Yeah. And they don’t find out, and neither do we.

Todd:  Yeah. That’s

Craig:  I’m okay with it. It doesn’t bother me because I I think that what it’s supposed to be is more about human nature, kind of an allegory about human nature and survival. You know, ultimately, what will you do to survive even if that means at the cost or expense of other people. Yeah. And and that’s that’s all kind of epitomized through Quentin. And, again, I feel like that’s just kind of, a weakness because he becomes clearly the bad guy

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And everybody else is just kind of

Todd:  Fine.

Craig:  A lamb for the slaughter.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. It’s like if he weren’t there or he got dispatched early on, everybody kinda would have gotten along more or less. That’s the sense you get. So it’s not like a a true Lord of the Flies situation. It’s not a very skillfully woven tapestry of conflict and controversy between these people. And I think that’s a failing of this film is that other other movies have really done it better. And in this case, because so much of the action of the movie, the the the thrust of the movie kind of relies on that I don’t know.  I just it just after a while, it just kinda got a little tedious for me to watch. And I and, you know, when you’re watching a movie like this, there’s sometimes this promise that there’s a puzzle behind it. And there’s a bit of a puzzle behind it. Obviously, they have no idea where they’re going. They’re just testing rooms for traps and trying the ones where there’s not 1. But who’s to say that the right way out of this thing is through all the traps, you know? Right. Nobody really knows. But at some point, Levin, who comes across as a student she has a very funny explanation for who she is or why she’s not so important.  Levin, what are you?

Clip:  Nothing. I just go to school. I hang out with my friends.

Todd:  What else?

Clip:  There is nothing else. My parents are these people. I live with them. I’m boring.

Todd:  But then, I think kind of improbably, Quentin notices that Levin has her glasses on her. And, occasionally, she’s putting them on. And he asks her, what are these for? Why aren’t you wearing them? She says, oh, I just wear them for reading. And he says, well, so and so, Holloway, her jewelry was stripped off of her, which I guess they talked about. I don’t remember.

Craig:  Yeah. They did.

Todd:  Okay. You’re the only 1 who has an accessory, basically, so this must mean something. The people who put us in this cube must have had a purpose for this. So they kind of go back to these numbers that they’ve been seeing, which are in the corridors between the cubes. And when I say corridor, it’s more of a little hatch.

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  It’s like about 2 feet deep long between the different sections of the cube. And there have been some numbers stamped in here, like, 3 3 digit numbers in each 1.

Craig:  Yeah. They look like serial which

Clip:  is what

Craig:  I kind of thought that

Clip:  they were at first. Yeah.

Craig:  So there’s that explanation. They figure out that

Clip:  each numb each room has, its own

Craig:  number, like, the rooms are numbered. Somehow, she comes up with the notion that any room that’s marked like you said, each 1, it’s a 3 sets of 3 digit numbers. And if any 1 of those 3 digit numbers is prime, then that means that the room is trapped. And, that’s how they navigate for a while, and it works for a while. Ultimately, somebody, I think it’s Quentin goes into a room that they have deemed safe and is almost killed, but somehow kind of implausibly escapes the trap, and comes back in. And so they realize that that’s not been the case. As what I that I was thinking about as I was watching this movie was it’s there’s a lot of math. Now math wasn’t my strong suit, but they convinced me well enough that there was kind of this intricate pattern for these numbers that did have some significance.  And I couldn’t even begin to explain to you what it is, but, like, they do. Like, they they go out of their way, you know, it’s, some of the numbers plus some of the numbers minus some of the numbers, and if it all comes out to these factorials, whatever whatever. And ultimately, I think that the movie just does a really good job of faking it. Yeah. Like because nobody’s gonna actually really try to test out this math theory.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And I read that, in fact, that’s true. Like, they do figure out this equation or or whatever it is. But, you know, the stuff that I was reading says that it it it really mathematically doesn’t work out.

Clip:  Uh-huh.

Craig:  In the movie, they they play it like it Todd, and I bought it. I’m no mathematician, so I’ll take your word for it. Good job with math.

Todd:  Yeah. Good try. I read a mathematician actually helped them work this out, but maybe it wasn’t a very good 1. I don’t know. But like you said, that’s we just have to take them to face value with this. And it really all kind of leans on Levin being a math whiz. And so you also kind of wonder, does everybody here have a purpose? Like, whoever put them in this cube, were they all put here for a reason? Like, were they given a fighting chance? You know? Was this like some kind of saw type scenario or whatever? So she’s kinda going through trying to figure out this math. And when Quentin almost dies, he ends up picking a fight with Worth for no really good reason except he just doesn’t like his looks.  And I think this, again, is supposed to be that, oh, he’s a police officer. Something to him seems fishy about Worth, so he just starts pushing and pushing and pushing him until Worth finally springs out and says, there’s no way out. And everyone looks at him and says, well, how do you know that? And you must know something. And it turns out that Worth is the guy who designed the outer part of this cube. He said, I’m an I’m an engineer or whatever, and I designed or architect or whatever, and I designed the outer shell. He tells Levin how large is it and, she’s able to work out the dimensions as to how many of these cubes would be in here. It’d be, like, 26 by 26 by 26, which means there are just, like, a 1000 of rooms in here thousands of rooms

Craig:  in here. 17,500 and 76 rooms.

Todd:  Which,

Craig:  which is crazy.

Todd:  It’s crazy. And then then again, that also makes the movie even less plausible when you

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  When you come to it. Because then it becomes this case of where it turns out these rooms are shifting. There’s this noise that gets made every now and then, this mechanical noise. It turns out that these these rooms are constantly shifting. And so even though they’re trying to work their way through it, the rooms are moving. Through a dialogue, that, again, I didn’t really buy and you alluded to it earlier, Worth just basically surmises that if he didn’t really know what he was working on, because he didn’t know anything else about this thing. He just was was hired to design the outer part and that’s it. And he was paid a bunch of money for it.  That’s all he knows. Then he surmises that everybody working on this project didn’t know what little piece they were working on and, then he makes this leap that there’s nobody in charge.

Clip:  This may be hard for you to understand, but there is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It’s it’s a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan. Can you grasp that? Big Brother is not watching you. I mean, somebody might have known sometime before they got they got fired or voted out or sold it, but if this place ever had a purpose, then it got miscommunicated or or or lost in the shuffle. I mean, this is an accident, a a forgotten perpetual public works project. Do you think anybody wants to ask questions? All they want is a is a clear conscience and a fat paycheck.

Todd:  I mean, none of that makes sense because somebody’s gotta put the damn thing together at the end of the day Yeah.

Clip:  And test it.

Craig:  It’s all very yeah. It’s it’s all very philosophical and and frankly pretentious.

Todd:  Yes.

Craig:  It it kinda just comes down to this. Why does anybody do anything? Well, because they can. You know, like

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Why would somebody make this to put people in? Oh, well, because they can. Holloway says, but you but why put people in it? Well, because that’s what it’s for. Like Yeah. No particular reason. And and it just it does it just becomes I don’t know. I don’t think that giving us a reason would have made me like it better. In fact, maybe would have cheapened it to some extent. I think part of the purpose of the movie is The mystery? Just yeah.  Well, it’s just like the exploration of how these people responded. Why it’s happening is not as important as just the fact that it is, and let’s see what happens. But the other thing that kind of bothers me is there is that indication that everybody’s in there for a reason, but we never really know why everybody’s in there.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  And and like you you said, the initial conceptualization was that it was, you know, all of these people trapped in hell. And and so you wonder if maybe for the guy worth who created this, if this is some sort of punishment

Todd:  or Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. Or or something along those lines. But I have no idea why Holloway’s in there, unless it’s just because she has medical experience, so maybe she can help some people, but she doesn’t really. No. And is Quentin in there just to kind of be the wild card?

Todd:  Maybe.

Craig:  Because I don’t understand whatever his purpose is. And the 6th person who we haven’t mentioned yet is a guy named Kazan who, is played by a guy named Andrew Miller. Who’s the only name that I even wrote down because I didn’t recognize any of these actors. But the reason that I wrote his name down was because I thought he did a really good job. He plays, a develop me developmentally disabled person. I I think that what he was going for was autism.

Todd:  Yeah. It seems to be.

Craig:  I was really impressed. I I thought that he played it very well in a very believable and not cartoonish kind of way. I’ve worked with many young people with autism and, you know, he was displaying a lot of the kinds of behaviors that, a lot of the kids that I’ve worked with display. And and it’s not he doesn’t do it in an exploitive way. It’s it’s not, making fun. It’s not to be laughed at. I I was really impressed by his performance, and we find out his purpose. The reason eventually, again, they realize that the math equation is even more complex than they thought before, and Quentin gets all ticked off and is yelling at Levin, you you should be able to figure this out.  You’re the mathematician. And she basically says, this equation, whatever it is, is too complex. I can’t just do it in my head. Nobody could do it in their head. And then Kazan comes up with the ant answers.

Todd:  Yeah. So he’s like a savant.

Craig:  Yeah. He’s a savant. And and so then he becomes very useful in in helping them get through. I guess, ultimately, what they figure out because they get in this 1 room that, appears to be room 27 or something, which Levin says doesn’t make any sense because if this is a 26 by 26 6 cube, there should not be a room 27. It doesn’t make any sense. But they just kind of keep moving along nonetheless. They’re trying to get to the edge, which logically makes sense. Like, keep moving in 1 direction.  Eventually, we’ll get to the edge. But, eventually, I guess what she realizes once they realize because they hear that noise, this grumbling noise at various time intervals. And what they eventually realize is that the rooms are shifting, and she realizes that it’s like a combination lock. It starts out in 1 position, and then it cycles through a cycle until it eventually cycles a bat around to the start position. And in the start position, that 27th room is on the outside of the cube. It’s it’s like a a gate, a bridge from the cube to the outside of the shell. And so then they, you know, once they realize that, then they hit frustratingly have to get back to that room that they passed who knows how long ago. And, again, I don’t even really understand this because, like, they passed that room a long time ago.  And if the thing is moving around, how do they know how to get back to it?

Todd:  Yeah. Maybe

Craig:  maybe it’s math.

Todd:  It’s it’s some weird math. I mean, it doesn’t make a lot of sense because she talks about the Cartesian coordinates. Right? So each of these permanently stamped numbers in the rooms are supposed to give the coordinates. They’re only gonna give the coordinates of the starting point. So how is she navigating through this constantly shifting box of rooms using the numbers that only tell the starting point just to get back there? I guess, what she’s trying to do is is just hope that they stumble upon this room or hope that the things that are shifting around are somewhat close together so they can move in that direction. But then again, also, they’re they’re stymied by the fact that some of these rooms are trapped. So they don’t you know, it’s not just strictly a navigation, problem, but it’s also well, you know, maybe the room you need is is over on the other side of this this room next to you. But if that room’s trapped, you can’t get through it.  So they do end up actually at a point where they end up going through a trap room on purpose. This is before they figured out, I think, that things were shifting around. But they thought they were getting close to the edge. Yeah. So this room this is kind of the set piece, I think, of the movie, really. It’s supposed to be, this room that’s sound activated. And of course, Kazan, you know, they’re it’s it’s it’s a down room. It’s 1 below them.  So they’re all sitting around the hatch and Kazan’s going, and

Craig:  Yeah. He has verbal tics.

Todd:  Yeah. And, you know, then all of a sudden all these, early nineties or mid nineties CGI, wires cut across the room. And so they realized they can get through the room if they can all just be really quiet. Now, they even answer the question, well, why does opening the door to the room not set these off? And they’re like, well, maybe it’s programmed to ignore that. So that neatly solves the problem of opening and closing the doors in the room, being an issue. So there’s this big set piece. And now, suddenly, Kazan, who has these verbal tics, is able to control them.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And furthermore, there’s a fight, first of all, and it’s significant. There’s a fight because Quentin’s like, there’s no way this guy is gonna even continue to come with us because he’s just a liability, especially in this freaking sound trapped room. He’s gonna get us all killed. And Holloway’s know, like, we can’t leave anybody behind. How could you? This is an awful thing. And they’re like, well, we’ll come back for him. And then, you know, Holloway’s like, you know that’s a lie and blah blah blah. Mhmm.  Well, then anyway, they end up deciding to let him go through, but there he is with his hands over his mouth sitting at the edge where he was before.

Craig:  Making the noise.

Todd:  Making the noise. Like, what what okay. At least move him to, like, 2 rooms up or something like that. Like, get him out of there. You already know yelling into this thing’s gonna set it off for everybody else. So

Craig:  Yeah. And but to be fair, I thought that this was the most tense part of the movie. This was kind of the only part of the movie where I was kind of holding my breath on the edge of my seat.

Todd:  It’s so true.

Craig:  Like, are they gonna get through here? At the same time, it was really frustrating to me because, Worth goes first and, apparently, they don’t need to check the hatches in this 1. Like, they’re just gonna guess.

Todd:  Yeah. Just opens 1.

Craig:  So they he he he gets he gets 1 of the other hatches open and he, like, sets up, he props it open with a shoe or something. And then the rest of them start coming. I think I don’t know. Levin goes at some point. Holloway goes at some point. But right before Kazan is going to come in, Holloway and Worth are waiting for him in the room. Like like, go wait in the other room. Like, it doesn’t make any sense that you would be in that room where the spikes shoot it out of the walls.  Like, go in the other room and get him to come that way. That way, at least, if he, on purpose or inadvertently, makes a noise, he’s the only 1 that gets it. But Yeah. And and then it also frustrated me because, like, Worth is standing there. Like, he has to be in there to, like, direct them. Like, they can’t figure out where the open hatches. Like, yeah, they can see it. Like, you don’t need to stand there and, like, point to it.  Yeah. But then when Holloway comes down, she stands there by him, and he’s, like, gesturing for her to go. And she points at Kazan, like, no. I’m waiting for him. But she totally vocalized something in there. Yeah. You you and, like, are what is wrong with you? Like, I I guess you’re just hoping that if you’re really quiet, like, it won’t hear you. Like, why would you even take that risk?

Clip:  It

Craig:  doesn’t make any sense.

Todd:  It was a little implausible. Yeah. And in that regard, the way it was played out.

Craig:  And and there’s more tension where, like, Kazan does get down there, but then he’s walking along and pants, like, get caught on the the thing that they have to turn to open the bottom hatch. But he gets off of it. But in the process of getting off of it, he actually kind of turns it. And so then the last 1 to come through is Quentin. And I don’t know, like, was he gonna fall through the trap or kind of opened underneath him or something, and he just avoids, like, falling through or something. I don’t know. But Kazan excited that the guy is getting through us and I don’t know. He verbalizes again, and then Quentin is able to, like, quickly enough swing his way through the open door, which is dumb.  Like

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  It it was instantaneous every other time there was a noise, but he has time to react and, like, swing his way out just in time. Yeah. But at least it was tense.

Todd:  It’s true. It was tense. And but you’re right. You just kinda had those problems where you’re going, really? So, yeah. They get through and that’s, like you said, it’s probably the most tense oh, it’s for sure the most tense scene of the movie. In a movie where you figured there’d be more tense scenes Uh-huh. For a movie that’s really dependent on this idea that there are all these booby trapped rooms, we don’t get a lot of that. Right?

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  We get a little bit of it at the beginning. We have this 1 room here, and the rest of it’s just them fighting in the rooms that they’re they’re safe in because they figured out how to find the safe rooms. Anyway, they finally do get to the edge. And, even though they’re wrong about the coordinates and things and things are constantly shifting, there’s, I guess, right enough to make it to the edge. And they open it up and, sure enough, there’s this huge gap, between the outer shell and the cube structure that they’re in. Basically, Holloway volunteers, to try to swing across it using a rope that they make by taking all their shirts off and tying them together. And so the whole team lowers her down on a rope so that she can get kind of enough length to try to swing across to the other side, push herself off and swing across the other side. Of course, it doesn’t work.  There’s nothing for her to latch on to or hold on to on that other side, or she can’t even reach it. Then there’s this bit where something slips, and, she almost falls falls down. And at the last second, Quentin yanks, grabs the very end of the rope as it’s falling out of that hole, and somebody grabs his legs and he’s and they’re able to save her. So she climbs up the rope and Clinton gives her his hand. But then he looks at her and starts to have second thoughts and decides to drop her instead. So Right. Quentin, because he had a big disagreement with her earlier, decided to just off her right then and there.

Craig:  Well, and that’s the thing. Like, tension has been building between them. And when I say between them, really just between Quentin and the rest of them because he’s starting to lose it. And he’s getting very angry and very irrational and violent, with all of them. He’s pounded on worth several times at this point, and he’s been in a big nasty fight with Holloway, the 1 that he drops at this point. I don’t know. First of all, the whole let’s swing on our clothes thing was like the stupidest idea ever, Beth. I guess

Clip:  What else did they

Craig:  do? Yeah. Right. Exactly. Then he catches her and then, you know, it’s so Dramatic. Projected. Like yeah. I mean, like, he pulls her up and, you know, they do a close-up on her face, and she’s so happy. And then she looks at him as like, oh, no.  And it cuts back to him, and he’s obviously, like

Todd:  Super pissed. Oh.

Craig:  I mean and crazy now. Mhmm. Got crazy. Her go. And and it’s the the the movie projects this so much, not just in his performance, but, like, his lips are getting all chapped. Like, he he looks like he’s

Todd:  Yeah. Going crazy.

Craig:  Losing it. Right.

Todd:  And he wasn’t far from it to begin with. I mean, the moment he woke up in there, he’s overacting basically and intense. So it’s not a lot of build really. It’s not like you see this guy slowly go crazy. You kinda had the, the idea from the beginning. This guy was the loose cannon and he was gonna cause problems.

Craig:  Right. So but they they keep going along. I don’t remember. I feel like at this point then they’re like, well, we found the edge. Well, let’s now try to go down. And and and, like, there’s lots of fighting and and Quentin is beating up Worth. And at 1 point, he throws Worth down through 1 of the bottom hatches and Worth ends up like, he that guy, Worth, I think he would have been dead, like Yeah. 20 minutes before they actually kill him.

Todd:  Made of rubber or something. I know.

Craig:  The Quentin throws him down into this room and then all you hear is this laughing. And so they all crawl down there and they realize that they’re back in this the room that they started in.

Todd:  Right. Because the the body of, Wren is there.

Craig:  And it’s at that point I think that Levin figures out that they’re moving and they need to find that 27th room. And so they go looking for it, and, at some point, Quentin is coming in last always. And at some point, once everybody’s through, Worth, like, jams the the hatch up as Quintin’s coming through it. So it’s, like, Todd his, like, neck pinned, and they run away and get away from him. And they’re looking, you know, to find the room by themselves, which they eventually do. And then, of course, irony of all ironies, Levin realizes that the room that they’ve been looking for all along the bridge was literally the first room that they found.

Todd:  Because her glasses broke right off the bat, and she found a piece of her glasses in that room.

Craig:  Yeah. And she had said she had said from the big get because everybody Quinn’s like, we gotta move. We gotta move. And she’s like, no. Let’s just stay here. Somebody will come for us. And he’s like, nobody’s coming for us. So, of course, they did leave and have been gone this whole time, and she’s, like, I knew it.  Like, we should’ve just this was it. We should’ve stayed here the whole time. But, of course, how would anybody have known that?

Todd:  Yeah. And well, and the other thing, you know, that when you talk about the shifting of these rooms, they talk about how massive this thing is. Right? 17,000 or so things. And somebody rightly says, well, if all these rooms are shifting, it must take days for

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  These to shift back to their original position. So, okay. Well, how many days have they been in there? You know, I mean, it didn’t seem like that long. It’s not really told to us in the movie, but they just kind of have to assume. And and it turns out, they don’t have to worry too much about that. Because by the time they get to that bridge room, it’s almost where it needs to be. And they they figured this out. But when they’re there, suddenly, there’s there’s kind of a moment, I think, between Levin, the girl, and Worth, the guy.  Worth, for some reason, decides he doesn’t wanna leave.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  He I guess he’s supposed to feel guilty, but it’s a combination of maybe feeling guilty about being a part of making this thing, even though he didn’t know. But also, you know, his sad story is just there’s nothing waiting for him on the other side. You know, it’s just nobody because he’s alone. And so he’s just like, I’ll just stay here. And she’s Right. Yeah. Okay. Whatever.  And so and so she, you know, is is kinda phasing him. Like, no, you can’t. You gotta come with us. Why would you give up now? And at that point, suddenly her head flies back and, a big spike comes up through her chest. And there is Quentin who has made it back to them.

Craig:  And He’s all covered in blood now. Like Yeah. Like Like, what has this guy been through in the last 7 minutes since we saw him?

Todd:  I know. And how did he find his own way? I mean, it’s kind of it’s kind of crazy. Anyway, yeah. So, yeah. He’s, he kills her her. Then he almost it looks like he about kills Worth. I mean, I think he stabs him a few times in the stomach or something. And they’re yelling at, Kazan, go through the hatch.  Go through the hatch. Because by now, I’ve, you know, the the hatch is open and they can see into the other room, which is, I guess, the bridge room. And, Yeah.

Craig:  And it’s just like this bright light.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  You you don’t really see what’s out there.

Todd:  So he goes, starts to go into the hatch, but Quentin grabs his legs and tries to pull him back in. At the same time, it seems like he’s gonna be successful. Worth grabs Quentin’s legs from this side. And what basically happens is Quentin is now straddling, the break between the rooms, and here comes their shift. And that bridge room slides up and over and down and, slices, Quentin, which was it was sad. We got all these great, these great bloody gross effects for some of these other interesting kills earlier in the movie. And here is the big big bad guy, and we don’t even really get to see but a blood smear on the wall to imply that he’s gone. You know?

Craig:  You’re right.

Todd:  Right. Just a budget thing, probably. But yeah.

Craig:  And then and then Worth is left alone. And now the you know, he’s obviously gonna die because the rooms have shifted again. But, you know, he’s got this self satisfied grin like, well, at least I killed that jerk. And you see Kazan, you know, standing on the bridge, whatever that means. At the other end, it’s just this bright white light and he’s staying because they took off all their clothes to make the rope or whatever. And so he’s just there, like, in his white under shorts and undershirt. And I feel like it’s supposed to be symbolic, like, he’s the innocent 1 and that’s why

Todd:  he made it

Craig:  made it out or whatever. Deserved it or something. And he goes walking towards the light, and then that’s just it. They cut it out. And and I read that they filmed the scene that followed that showing what was outside the cube. And the director said, when we got to editing, that was the very first thing I cut. He said, I thought that, you know, it was far better if we didn’t know if the audience didn’t know what was out there and what was going to happen and what was all behind it. It’s kinda leaves it this mystery.  And I have to say I agree. I I think that was the wisest choice because whatever else it might have been, I I think it would have been a let Todd. I don’t I don’t know what it could have been out there that I would have been like, oh. Uh-huh. So I I don’t know.

Clip:  Well

Craig:  Who knows? You know, as far as we know, it could be heaven. It could who knows what it

Todd:  could be?

Craig:  Yeah. I do I do like that final image of Kazan just kind of shuffling towards the light. I thought it was an interesting way to go.

Todd:  Yeah. I don’t know. I I felt like as a bit of a cop out and, and I didn’t really care for it too much, especially because like I said, it’s not like you have to solve the central mystery of the movie. But because all of the Lord of the Flies stuff was just so unsatisfying and a little contrived and improbable and poorly acted. Sorry. That’s kinda how I felt about it. You know, it just I I was I was hoping for something to to walk away from the movie with a little something like, oh, that’s interesting or whatnot. But I kind of expected to not know.  I mean, I really expected not to know. I I figured it would be that kind of film, so I wasn’t too surprised about that. You know, it’s funny too because so he’s the he’s the 1 to live. Like you said, he’s sort of the innocent 1, which begs the question, well, then why the hell was he in there?

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  You know? Is this truly like this it it it’s not a truly random thing. You know? We’re not I don’t think we’re supposed to philosophize that this is truly 100% this corporate bureaucratic thing and people just get plucked from nowhere to put in here because we see that there is a bit of a method to it. You’ve got the the woman who’s good at math. You have the the guy who can break out of prison. You have the the dude who can actually do math in his head. Mhmm. You you have the doctor who can take care of people. And you have Worth who, knows the cube.  Right? So

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  So, you know, why why did he survive? Oh, I guess he’s the most deserving of it, but then again, he clearly wasn’t deserving of being put in there in the first place. Right. And which also leaves Quentin, and so he’s the cop and we kinda see he’s unhinged from the beginning. But there’s a a reference a little earlier that maybe Holloway, the doctor knows a little bit more about him because she says something about him liking young girls, and then he accuses her of knowing a little too much about him. So once again, there’s sort of like this sort of sin implied, that there’s a reason he’s in there Todd. So it’s a little inconsistent there or there’s just a logic I’m not getting, you know. Or maybe it’s part of the whole experiment. It’s like, the you get the 1 innocent guy in there who should hopefully live.  I don’t know.

Craig:  I don’t know either. And and I feel like the way that we’ve been talking about it for the last 45 minutes or whatever, 1 might think that I didn’t like the movie. And that’s not true. I did. I actually think that it’s a a really clever premise. And is the acting great? No. But this is a low budget Canadian film. Yeah.  For what

Todd:  it is?

Craig:  I don’t I don’t know any of these actors. I I didn’t even look them up because I knew I didn’t recognize any of them. I I know that some of them have done some TV and stuff like that, so it’s it’s not necessarily the case that they’re complete amateurs. But, these aren’t, you know, like, big name folks that you would have major expectations of or anything. And most of it was shot with a handheld camera, and it was all shot in this 1 room. And that could have been so tedious. And just little decisions like changing the color of the room from room to room. I I thought you know, I I got the sense of them moving through space.

Todd:  Right.

Craig:  It didn’t feel like they were always in the exact same room.

Todd:  That was good. The visuals were good. You know, a lot of the visuals in this movie were quite good and and well done.

Craig:  And it feels and and I don’t mean this as a criticism. It feels in many ways like a play. You’ve got, you know, this really confined space, this really limited set piece, and a lot of dialogue, and that’s kind of what what drives it forward. In fact, I can see, you know, if somebody had a really cool, a great budget and some really cool technical opportunities, it could be a play.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And that might potentially be interesting. III again, I don’t remember. I didn’t go back and watch the sequel and the prequel, but of course they do build on the mythology and you do get a little bit more information about maybe. I don’t think that there’s ever a really clear explanation of specifically who is behind all of this, but I I think there’s more exploration of it. And I think that it, you know, it’s some big entity, whether it be a government or some sort of corporate entity or something, and and it’s nefarious. And you know, they explore that in in the sequel and in the prequel. And like I said, the the sequel is more high-tech. The prequel is less high-tech because I think, if I remember correctly, the prequel is supposed to be cube in its initial incarnation, and so it’s it’s less technological, and and kind of more, simply mechanical and and that kind of stuff.  I I remembered liking the second 1 quite a bit. If I remember correctly, and I could be totally wrong, I think I remember the prequel being a little bit tedious and boring, but that could just be my failing memory. I don’t know. But I do. III think that for the premise alone, it’s interesting and and worth watching. It is a little bit heavy handed, and it does leave some things to be desired. But I think that the premise is strong enough to make it worth at least 1 viewing, and and people talk about it. You know, I’ve heard people talk about it, and, it does have kind of a cult, following.  And I understand why because it is unique, and I appreciate that.

Todd:  Yeah. Well, it’s definitely unique. And like you said yeah. It it what more can I say? I don’t really have anything else to say about the cube. I just, III did really I did really enjoy it.

Craig:  I’m trying Todd be nice. I You are. You are. I feel like we I don’t know. Because I didn’t hate it. I don’t think it’s a bad movie, and I’m glad that somebody recommended it because I have I’ve sat down and watched it probably 2 or 3 times. So it’s it’s obviously, there’s something there that holds my interest.

Todd:  It’s hard. It’s like you know, and it’s kinda like I said before. We’ve seen so much worse. So it’s hard to come down on it too hard. Right? You know? Mhmm. Even with the shoddy acting and, you know, kind of a lot of implausibility. But for me, I guess, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. III actually, this kind of movie generally is my cup of tea.  I mean, these very high concept, puzzle y sort of kinda movies. I like those sort of Lord of the Fly type situations. They could run thin after a while like the freaking Walking Dead, you know, where I basically quit watching that because it was the same thing over and over again. Just, oh, people can’t get along. Big surprise. But, this movie didn’t go that far, but it just didn’t go far enough in the realm of plausibility for me, to to to be super interesting. So that whole Lord of the Flies aspect of it just because kind of kind of fell flat. And, the puzzle aspect of the movie wasn’t strong enough or comprehensible enough to to keep my interest either.  It’s not like I felt like I could follow along with them and do all these math equations and, you know, and help them figure it out. So

Craig:  Right. That’s true. It reminds me of a movie, from 2015 called Circle. Have you seen this movie? I think I saw it on Netflix. No. All of these people and there’s a bunch of them. I don’t remember how many of them there are, but it’s a much larger group. They wake up standing on these platforms in a circle facing 1 another, and they realize that if they step down off, of the circle, they get killed.  They get electrocuted or something. And, they finally come to realize again, it’s like a time interval thing where every few minutes or so, there’s, like, a noise, and they have these buzzers in their hands, and they have to vote for who will be the next 1 to die. Okay. And if they don’t and if they don’t vote, somebody just dies at random. And and I it’s like they figure out it’s gonna be a last man standing kind of thing. And I like that movie. You should check that 1.

Todd:  It sounds interesting.

Craig:  Yeah. But it’s it’s all very much like that. Again, it’s just all these people standing around on a dark sound stage for the whole thing and talking through, you know, all the moral quandaries that go along with that. Because, of course, there are old people, there are sick people, there are children, there’s a pregnant woman, and, like, how do you decide who’s worthy of, being alive? Totally different movie, but it reminded me of this. So I think I’d see

Todd:  I’d see circle over cube. Yeah. Okay.

Craig:  Fair enough.

Clip:  Well, thank you so much for listening

Todd:  to another episode. Thanks for requesting the cube. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Facebook. You can search for us online. Just Google us 2 guys in a chainsaw, and we’re everywhere your favorite podcasts are to be streamed, downloaded, or otherwise found. You can also visit our website 2 guys at redfortynet.com, and you can, access all of our past episodes, stream them online, or download them there as well. And leave us a note there on our Facebook page, and let us know what you think.  Until next time. I’m Todd

Craig:  And Craig.

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.