Well, gang, with winter very nearly over but a pandemic gamely tagging in to set upon and batter us up something fierce, what better time to hunker down indoors and revisit some horror films of yesteryear? As it happens, your intrepid writer took it upon himself to get the jump on this in the past couple of weeks, revisiting—or, in one case, first-time-visiting—The Ring, The Boy, Candyman, and Cube. Way ahead of you, Corona.
Faring least well of the lot is Cube, so let’s start with that. Often hailed as a sort of proto-Saw, for all the good or ill that implies, and predating it by seven(!) years, Vincenzo Natali’s sci-fi-cum-horror debut is, without question, a formative work, cult classic, and true touchstone for the consistently-twinned genre(s). (14-year-old me, already a latecomer, absolutely ate this movie up.) It’s also, upon reflection and in several ways, truly more akin to Saw 2, but we’ll come to that. Cube basically has the feel of a feature-length bottle-episode of some SyFy (nee SciFi) anthology series that never made it past its pilot*, one which cleverly color-codes the various rooms of its namesake in order to disguise its limited sets and budget.
(*Call it Waaay Outer Limits. Or, from another angle, you could call it an especially gruesome forebear to Black Mirror, right down to its ham-fisted yet still somehow vague social commentary.)
The cleverness, alas, doesn’t extend far past that logistical ingenuity—and, part and parcel, a smattering of set-pieces that make the most of these constraints. The booby-trapped rooms, which would seem to offer up a myriad of opportunities for grotesquery, turn out distressingly limited—owing in no small part, surely, to the minuscule budget. Still, a melted face here and noise-triggered trap requiring total silence to bypass there provide some grisly and tense curveballs, respectively.
Most everything else comes up wanting. The fault lies at the feet of no single source, but rather, well, pretty much all of them. The acting here ranges from community-theater-grade to openly petulant, and is done no favors by half-baked characterization and what my viewing partner pegged, rightly, as an apparent total lack of direction*. There’s a soliloquy slightly past the halfway point that I think is supposed to be cathartic, caustic, and cynical in equal measure, but ends up, above all else, confusing**. Maybe that’s me—again, I’m sure 14-year-old me was suitably impressed—but it also sheds light on both this film’s faltering, false parallel to Saw, as well as its actual closest companion piece.
(*It’s surprising, and oddly a little bit heartwarming, to see that while Natali’s big screen career has been sporadic at best, he did eventually graduate to directing half a dozen episodes of Hannibal, which was the most gorgeously staged show on television when it was airing.)
(**For those who’ve seen, it’s probably clear I’m talking about Worth’s “headless blunder” speech; I get that pointlessness is the point, but it feels symptomatic of the film’s overall tendency to try to get in front of criticisms by putting them into character’s mouths [another example: that noise-activated room is “programmed” not to react to the sound of its doors opening or closing, so that’s nice and tidy], but here the elaborate handwave of a non-answer kind of comes across as, “Well, you’re an idiot for asking.”)
Saw—which I’ll confess I’ve not seen incredibly recently, but did have the chance to revisit (read: stumble upon on Showtime Beyond) within the past few years—actually holds up decently well. This is due far less to its hyperkinetic direction and bludgeoning reliance on montage (thank heaven James Wan learned some restraint) and instead to its surprising depth of character. Make no mistake, there’s still some thin scripting plus overacting aplenty in Saw (“You’re a liar! STOP THE LIES!”), and unlikeable people, too; however, and crucially, there’s no one of Danny Glover or Cary Elwes caliber to overact in Cube, or even of then-neophyte Leigh Whannell*. That film’s fairly limited cast also allows it to drill down deeply on some greater nuance, which makes even heel-turns and twists feel earned and consistent in a way that Cube doesn’t really take the time or effort to achieve.
(*Whannell, on the other side of the camera, recently surprised me again with his slick-yet-sophisticated take on Invisible Man, but that’s another post.)
In this way, I found myself time and again thinking the more apt spiritual successor is Saw’s notably inferior immediate sequel, which upped the head- and bodycount, along with the number of graphic, gory traps to match*, while sacrificing character and the coherence of vision that were the economically staged first entry’s secret weapons. Even the heroes are hard to like in Saw 2 (and Cube, where they span the gamut from pedantic to psychotic), and while, again, you don’t have to have likeable characters to make a great movie—in fact, I’d argue you rarely do, especially in horror—it helps to at least have their flaws and irksomeness clearly, consistently defined, rather than retrofitted on the fly.
(*Also like Cube, there are a couple of diamonds in the rough in terms of trap design that work on a visceral level, like the pit of hypodermic needles, or the box with the razorblade hand-openings, the latter of which, especially, is elegantly gruesome, and clever if you ignore the stupidity of its victim.)
Saw 2 has its fans, and so does Cube. They’re both entitled to them. I was—and, to an extent, still am—one of them (although, alas, I don’t get Showtime Beyond anymore, so the chances of encounters in the wild have diminished exponentially). I also remember being disappointed by the former, even in my high school salad days, but sticking with that franchise to the bitter end half a decade hence. Horror can do that. And I’ll still (and, I guess, just did) defend the first Saw, which I contend takes the basic schematic laid out by Cube and imbues it with the better-fleshed-out victims that make the rending of said flesh more impactful and upsetting than just, “Oh, hey, neat kill.” Then again, the one wouldn’t exist without the other, so you see the stickiness; traps indeed. I didn’t intend this from the outset, I swear, but the irony has steadily dawned on me that Cube’s biggest issue is its lack of dimension.
Sorry.
Speaking of unfair comparisons, Candyman, despite having aged the better part of a decade longer than Cube, has matured far better by my estimation. Tune in next time for an unpacking of much superior, if still queasily problematic, 90s horror keystone.
Also:
-Among the creative decisions that’s aged poorest is Cube’s inclusion of an “idiot savant” (which, oof) type to help distill down some of its mathematical gobbledygook. It’s not only a questionable crutch of a creative trope to start with, but also feeds into the greater conundrum of the overall aimlessness of purpose: Who’s picking these people, and are they supposed to escape? “Teamwork makes the dream work” seems an awfully pat, too-tidy-by-half message for a film that prides itself on its cynicism.
-Surely our buddy Worth would tell me I’m dumb and it doesn’t matter anyway, but also, how the hell would his self-professed office drone of an accomplice even know that it’s headless? I’m pretty sure that fallacy’s what’s most confounding for me.
-Incidentally, character quibbles aside, David Hewlett’s is the best (read: most consistent) performance in the film, which makes sense, given he’s the snide slacker, and doesn’t have to do much reaching (truly not a knock, just true of and to the character he’s portraying).
-Meanwhile, Maurice Dean Wint as Quentin seems like he’d rather be doing Shakespeare in the Park (and a cursory glance at his IMDb page bears this out). Nicky Guadagni’s Holloway swings to and fro from ostensible voice of reason to wingnut conspiracy theorist with alarming velocity (though, fun fact: She’s the uber-intense Aunt Helene in last year’s Ready or Not, so good on her for sticking with it). And Nicole de Boer’s Leaven oscillates, as well, mostly between de facto audience surrogate and unpleasantly arrogant math wiz, unfortunately without the script, characterization, or charisma to fully bridge that gap; these days, I could see her role going to Jane Levy, especially if Sam Raimi were to finance a reboot (which, I was just kidding to begin with, but…).
-Lastly, and of special note, Mark Korven’s original score to this movie is also something to behold. It’s a mystifying collection of industrial-ish chirps and whirrs, drones and moans, and what feel like honest-to-god vocal warmups. It’s weird as hell, and while Korven’s no Charlie Clouser, I’m still absolutely obsessed with it.
The Andreview Hargablog 