Cube
Canada | English
1997 | 90 Minutes
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Cast: Nicole De Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller, Julian Richings
I refused to believe that Cube, the cult classic film, is getting close to being thirty years old. Where the hell does the time go? Anyway, it is what it is – and despite seeing this film more times than I can count, and having introduced it to a whole bunch of people too, I hadn’t ever had the chance to see it on the big screen – and especially not in a setting like this. Until now.
Shown as part of the Fantasia Retro series, 1997’s is a groundbreaking piece of Canadian film that has since reached cult status as are its sequel and to a lesser extent, its prequel as well. When I noticed this film was playing, I instantly knew that this was more than a film – this would be an experience to sit through with the Fantasia crowd. And I wasn’t wrong. (There’s a reason this movie made our Ten must-see films at Fantasia film festival 2024 list).
See Also: Tiki Tiki at Fantasia Festival 2024
I originally saw this on IFC, late at night, and fell in love with it. So much so that I went out and bought the DVD (which I still own) the very next day. See, I’m a lover of genre film and especially like horror and thriller films. The creativity and intelligence that Cube gives its audience was, at the time, incredibly refreshing – and the kills are creative, gruesome and just downright mean. Everything a horror fan could wish for.
A handful of very disparate characters, from a twenty-something math genius and a master escape artist to an aggressive cop and an autistic savant, find themselves trapped in a gigantic cube containing a maze-like arrangement of interlocking rooms. Their struggle to figure out the cube’s secrets and escape, without being killed by its horrific traps—or each other—is the basis of this jolting debut feature from director Vincenzo Natali.
There’s just so much to love about Cube – and it’s two sequels (well, fine, a sequel and a prequel if you want to be pedantic about it), and that is that unlike the entire slasher film genre, Cube implores people to think. A huge part of its make-up is math based and built on intelligence. Cube is a smart film that doesn’t come across as condescending in any way, and does incredibly well in making the audience care about it’s characters.
At its root, this is a trap film, and I’d be astonished if there isn’t some sort of escape room somewhere that has borrowed heavily from this movie. Before films like Saw built a franchise around victims being drugged, abducted, and awakening in a hellish puzzle, Cube did it – and it might be bold of me to see that Cube did it better, but Cube did it better.
There’s a reason that Cube has been so well received throughout the years, and it quite honestly remains atop of my Canadian horror films list and is still a film a recommend to people if they haven’t has the chance to see it. I suppose, that’s what I’m doing right here, too. Um, let’s make that more clear. What! What! You haven’t seen Cube? Go watch it right now, you dingleberry!
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Sitting in the dark – with strangers, most of us having seen this film multiple times yet still loving it, felt so right. I could have stayed home and watched this in my living room – or I could watched something else, at the festival or otherwise – but this was the right call. This was the place to be and I’m glad to have experienced this.
Seeing this great film on the big screen would have been awesome on its own, but doing so at the Fantasia festival, with so many other like-minded film geeks was just wonderful. Maybe, if I put it out into the universe, we’ll get a screening of Cube 2 : Hypercube next year. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
