Midweek Mention... Cube

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week, we’re descending into the mind-bending, minimalist sci-fi thriller that is Cube (1997). A cult favourite from Canadian director Vincenzo Natali, this low-budget psychological puzzle box is as disorienting and claustrophobic as it is thought-provoking.

Cube begins in medias res: a group of strangers wakes up in a strange, sterile room with hatches on all six sides. Each door leads to another nearly identical room—some are safe, others are lethal traps. No one knows how or why they’re there. The group includes a cop, a doctor, an escape artist, a math whiz, a paranoid conspiracy theorist, and an autistic man with extraordinary numerical abilities.

What unfolds is part escape room, part social experiment, as they try to survive—and escape—the Cube.

Cube is rich in metaphor and minimal in exposition. It avoids explaining who built the structure or why, focusing instead on how ordinary people behave under extreme pressure. As the group’s dynamic shifts, alliances form and collapse, revealing how quickly fear and distrust take hold.

The traps are inventive (acid spray, wire slicing, sound-activated death rooms), but the real tension comes from the breakdown of civility and the slow unravelling of each character’s psyche. The cube itself becomes a symbol of bureaucracy, control, and the meaningless complexity of modern systems.

And the maths—there’s a lot of maths. Prime numbers, Cartesian coordinates, permutations. It’s as if Saw, Waiting for Godot, and a high school algebra textbook all collided.

🎭 Why It Works

• Tight Concept: With one main set (re-lit in different colours), the film turns its limitation into a strength, heightening the claustrophobia and disorientation.
• Atmosphere: The sterile design, synth score, and total lack of context contribute to a deeply unsettling tone.
• Character Study: The real danger isn’t always the Cube—it’s the people inside it. Watching the moral descent is part of the thrill.

🧒 A Dad’s Take

This one’s definitely not for the younger kids—Cube is violent, bleak, and existentially harrowing. But for older teens and grown-ups, it’s a great entry into lo-fi sci-fi that provokes more thought than jump scares. Ideal for fans of The Twilight Zone, The Platform, or Escape Room, it asks the big question: what would you do if no one was watching—and you might not make it out?

Cube remains a sharp, unsettling mystery box of a film. It’s not about finding answers—it’s about watching how far people will go to survive when the rules no longer make sense. If you’re in the mood for a tight, cerebral thriller that’s as much philosophy as it is suspense, this one’s worth stepping into… just be careful which door you open. 🎬🧠👨‍👧‍👦🍿

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Until next time, we remain...

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