Cube Zero

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Movie
German title Cube Zero
Original title Cube Zero
Country of production Canada
original language English
Publishing year 2004
length 92 minutes
Age rating FSK 18 (unabridged)
FSK 16 (shortened)
Rod
Director Ernie Barbarash
script Ernie Barbarash
production Suzanne Colvin ,
Jon P. Goulding
music Norman Orenstein
camera François Dagenais
cut Mitch Lackie ,
Mark Sanders
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
Cube 2: Hypercube

Cube Zero is a Canadian science fiction - horror film from 2004. It is the prequel to Cube (1997) and Cube 2 - Hypercube (2002). Cube Zero only came to a few cinemas in America and was released directly on DVD in Germany on February 24, 2005 .

action

The film is about a kind of prison, the cube, a 135 meter high cube made up of 25 × 25 × 25 individual cubes. These individual cubes move within the cube and some contain deadly traps. In contrast to the cube from the first film, the cubes are not identified by numbers, but by a triplet of letters. This triple gives the coordinates of the room, which gives the occupants the idea that there are 26 cubes in each dimension. Each cube has a round opening in the middle through which you can get into a neighboring cube.

The story begins with the prisoner Ryjkin. He enters a room and is sprayed with a liquid that he thinks is just water. Unfortunately for him, this liquid is a lye : when he scratches his hand, the flesh on his hand dissolves, which spreads all over his body. He eventually melts and dies.

In the next scene you find yourself in a control room where the two technicians Wynn and Dodd watched Ryjkin's death. When Wynn flips through the dead man's file, Dodd advises him to leave it alone. Wynn suspiciously puts the folder down and continues drawing. It quickly turns out that Wynn is very smart because he always mates Dodd at chess without looking.

The two are later ordered to locate an inmate, Mrs. Rains, and record her memories. The two see in the memories how the woman is followed and drugged by armed men. Rains wakes up a little later in the Cube and meets a group of four people in a neighboring room: the soldier Haskell, the doctor Jellico, an older man named Bartok and the fat Meyerhold. Seeing the tattoo on Haskells' forehead, Rains remembers her capture and believes Haskell is one of the mercenaries. The others then become suspicious, as Rains seems to know something. The others don't know anything about their past. When Rains tries to continue climbing, she is stopped and informed that there are traps. A little later, they use the boot method, already known from the first Cube film, in which they throw a boot into a room to test the room for traps. This method turns out to be deceptive when Bartok goes into a supposedly safe room and is cut by several thin metal wires that shoot away from the walls and wrap around him.

Meanwhile, Wynn Dodd asks about a dubious "third exit". Dodd thinks the whole thing is nonsense, but the two colleagues who are not present that day supposedly knew something. When asked about the whereabouts of the two, Dodd claims they were out on vacation or due to illness. Dodd strongly advises Wynn to "forget about that bullshit".

In the cube, the remaining four discover that the individual cubes are marked by triples of letters. Rains got the idea to write down the numbers of this room and the neighboring rooms by taking shoe polish as ink and using it to write on a shirt. Wynn and Dodd watch this and praise their ingenuity. They also talk about the flow of the Cube program: The cubes move. As soon as they get back to their starting position, the program begins with the "cleaning": All rooms heat up, so that everything living inside burns to ashes immediately. In the cube, the protagonists recognize that the letters indicate coordinates and that there cannot be more than 26 rooms in each direction.

In the engineering room, Wynn searches Rains' file and discovers that there is no acceptance form. All cube candidates must fill out this form if they want to use it as a test person. Allegedly they are all condemned to death, who are given a chance of survival. Wynn insists that "those up there" must stick to it. Shortly afterwards, he recognizes Rains in a newspaper photo of a political strike . Wynn realizes that, in theory, the government can put anyone it wants into the Cube and put fabricated stories in the files. Dodd warns him again not to preoccupy himself with the matter. He says they just press buttons themselves, to make decisions, they need a little more. Wynn wants Dodd to call "up there" and sort out Rains' file. When Wynn tries to call, the phone rings. You are ordered to perform the release procedure with an inmate who has reached the exit. Wynn blackmailed Dodd, so Dodd promised to call up about Rains afterward.

It turns out that the inmate is Owen, one of the missing technician colleagues. As a test, Wynn and Dodd ask him, "Do you believe in God?" Owen replies "no". When Wynn then presses the button labeled "No", Owen is burned by flamethrowers embedded in the floor. Wynn and Dodd then argue over whether faith would have saved him. Dodd says no one has answered yes yet. It remains unclear whether Owen could have survived.

When Wynn is supposed to send a message upstairs, he uses the opportunity, drives down and gets into the cube. A little later, three agents appear in the control room: Mr. Jax and his two assistants Finn and Quigley. They were sent by Dodd's supervisor, who apparently cannot handle the situation on his own. Finn and Quigley then start looking for Wynn. Dodd is tasked with confronting the Rains group with final samples.

In the cube, Jellico climbs into a room with the coordinates A, Z, Z. Rains notes that this is the first time a Z has appeared. When the others want to get into the room with Jellico, she has disappeared. The color of the walls has also changed. You realize that the rooms are moving. Meanwhile, Jellico explores her room, where she steps on a syringe protruding from the floor and falls unconscious. The others find her a little later. She is still alive, but has contracted a virus that is gradually eating its way through her body. Meyerhold pushes her away when she scratches him and infects him too, whereupon she collapses dead. For fear of infection, Haskell throws him into the nearest room with a trap. Rains wants to free Meyerhold, but the door to the room cannot be opened. Inside the room, Meyerhold is killed by ultrasound: the sound waves make him tremble like glass until it finally bursts.

Shortly afterwards, Wynn meets Rains and Haskell. Dodd notices this and has to report it to Jax. Meanwhile, Wynn tells of the Cube that it will be used as a test area for biological and chemical weapons. Everyone in the engineering room overhears what Wynn is saying. Finn then causes the plaques with the letters to dissolve. Jax also positions traps around Wynn's room. A short time later, Jax is ordered to wipe out the group immediately. The attempt fails: The killing program aborts and Finn and Quigley lose their connection to the Cube. Dodd has cut the cables that run under his desk. He can leave the room under the pretext of going to the bathroom. Meanwhile, the cube switches to restart: all cubes move to their starting position, all traps are switched off and there are 10 minutes until the cleaning program starts, which would burn Wynn's group to ashes.

Meanwhile, Jax discovers that Dodd has cut the cables. He surprised him when he was pulling some cables out of a power box. Dodd swallows one of the components from the electrical box. Jax then paralyzes him and cuts the component out of his stomach again. Quigley can now restore power. Finn then connects with the military: Haskell was once a soldier, so he has a biochip inside that you can use to control him. Jax activates the biochip and sets Haskell on to Wynn and Rains. Rains manages to put him out of action by kicking him in the abdomen.

In one of the deactivated trap rooms (and at the same time one of the bridge cubes) Wynn and Rains encounter the skeleton of the second missing technician. When they arrive at the exit, which turns out to be an underwater exit, they are surprised by Haskell. You just manage to escape. But Haskell falls victim to the purge program. Jax has a unit at the exit look for them. You find them and start the hunt. While Wynn is struck by a tranquilizer, Rains escapes.

Wynn wakes up on an operating table. Jax reveals to him that he will be put back in the Cube. Wynn claims he never filled out an acceptance form. But then Jax tells him that both he and Dodd and the other two technicians signed the form many years ago. When Wynn learns that Rains managed to escape, he laughs. Jax leaves the room and leaves Wynn to the brain surgeon.

Wynn wakes up with a new group in the Cube with no memory. He now seems to have become autistic and shows the same symptoms as Kazan from the first part.

background

The budget was approximately 1.2 million Canadian dollars . The film was shot from August 11th to September 5th, 2003 in Toronto . The film was first released on October 15, 2004 in the USA at the Screamfest Horror Film Festival .

This film refers back to the original cube, even if it looks a little different than in the original film. In contrast to the first two films, this time many open questions are answered, if not all. It is learned that the Cube is an experiment by the US government. The inmates are officially felons who volunteered to take part in the experiment in order to allegedly escape the death penalty. In fact, it turns out that (also) insurgent people who have become uncomfortable for those responsible are locked in the cube . The viewer learns that nobody has been able to leave the cube successfully . : Those who had reached the exit alive, failed the exam question "Do you believe in God?" . A negative answer is punishable by death, whether a positive answer will result in a different result remains uncertain. Furthermore, it is mentioned in the course of the plot that other cubes were built in other places.

Others

The final scene alludes to Wynn's love for superheroes. Like Kazan from the first part of Cube , his hand moves continuously. Wynn is about the movement of Spider-Man to cast a net.

Reviews

The lexicon of international films wrote that the film was particularly convincing due to its “ look ”, which described “ the labyrinth as a little out of date and in need of an overhaul and the types of killing as not yet fully developed ”.

The film magazine Cinema wrote: Even the second “Cube” fold-out - since it plays before the first part, actually a prequel - is not for the faint-hearted. In addition to a few Gore moments, there are new traps based on old patterns, a few visual ideas from the director and a kind of framework plot that doesn't create too much atmosphere and tension. Conclusion: experimental set-up with little evidential value .

Awards

In 2004 the film won awards at the New York City Horror Film Festival and Screamfest .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Comparison of the cut versions FSK 18 and FSK 16 . Retrieved June 26, 2015.
  2. ↑ Release certificate for Cube Zero . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2005 (PDF; abridged version).
  3. ^ Cube Zero. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Cinema.de: film review