Cube film series

The "Cube" film series is a series of three Canadian science fiction/horror films directed by Vincenzo Natali, Andrzej Sekuła and Ernie Barbarash respectively.

The three movies are each based on the same premise; there is a gigantic, mechanical, cube-shaped structure (the purpose and origin of which is almost completely unknown) that is made up of lots of smaller cube-shaped rooms. Each of these rooms has 6 doors, one on each wall and one on the ceiling and one on the floor, which lead into adjacent, identical rooms, only differing by color (except for where all connecting rooms are really the same room, just from a different time period). Some of these rooms are safe, while others are equipped with booby traps such as flamethrowers and razorwire which kill a person who enters the room (in some cases it is possible to detect a trap by throwing a boot into the room first) (except in "" where the traps are less distinct — in the form of an abstract shape and visual effects — and predictable).

In each case, a group of strangers wakes up in this mysterious structure, with no knowledge of how they got there or why they are there. In order to escape from the prison, however, they must band together and use their combined skills and talents to avoid the traps and navigate out of the maze, while also trying to solve the mystery of what the cube is and why they are in it. However, the pressure of being in the cube usually drives one of the characters insane, and they start killing the others.

"Cube Zero" was slightly different from the original two movies in that it also dealt with some people on the outside of the cube whose job it was to control the cube and oversee those within. It also attempted to answer some of the questions of the series.

The "Cube" film series

*"Cube" (1997) the first movie follows a group of seven frightened strangers who find themselves trapped in a bizarre maze of cube-shaped rooms, with no memory of how they arrived there. Searching for a way out, they soon discover that many rooms contain lethal booby-traps, whilst others are safe. Initially the prisoners band together in attempt to escape, however as their stay becomes longer the prisoners begin to turn on each other as the stress of their imprisonment takes hold. Despite the film's low budget, it achieved moderate commercial success and has developed a cult following due to its surreal, Kafkaesque setting.

*"" (2002) is a departure from the original. The dusky, dingy rooms of the first film are replaced with high-tech, brightly-lit rooms, and the conventional technology of the original traps are replaced with ultra-tech threats based on abstract mathematics. A new group of prisoners quickly discover that, unlike the original Cube, the rooms in their prison appear to shift "instantaneously". They realize they are inside a functioning tesseract in which gravity, space and time are distorted. This time the prisoners each have a connection to the cube's suggested creator.

*"Cube Zero" (2004) is a prequel to "Cube". Unlike the first two movies, which were limited to the prisoners' point of view, the film follows two characters, Eric Wynn and Dodd, who are technicians observing the prisoners. Wynn finds himself caring about the fate of Cassandra Rains, a woman in the Cube, and decides to risk his job and his life to help her try to escape.

Prisoners details in each movie and traps

"Cube"

The prisoners in this movie are complete strangers with no apparent connection to each other or the cube itself (as a total variety of types of people have been chosen), except for Worth who turns out to be a designer of the outer shell housing the cube, and possess some kind of skill or talent which if used together will assist in their escape. Each prisoner character is named after a famous prison.

Traps that feature in this movie are

* Base shower
* Flame-throwers
* Liquid nitrogen-throwers
* Swinging dicer
* Retracting spikes
* Bolts attached to ensnaring cables shot across room
* Syringes on the floor containing flesh-eating virus
* Intense soundwave speakers

See also

* Cinema of Canada
* "The Cube"