Crucible meets torture-porn

Rating: 6/10 (17 June 2010)

This movie is, really, a pretty basic and pedestrian crucible story. A bunch of characters are thrown into a situation that seems out of their control and have to try to work together to solve it.
In the process they are picked off one by one with gruesome death traps. That's the torture-porn part.
From such pedestrian beginnings however comes what is, at times, a surprisingly engrossing film. You find yourself caught up in the same questions facing the characters: why are they here? what is this place? why did someone spend a whole lot of money building something with essentially no purpose other then to confuse people and kill them horrifically?
Alas, the main characters never learn the answers to any of these questions and neither do we. We just get to watch them struggle and die in ways that are sometimes believable, sometimes not, and always over- the-top.
The film-making craft here is excellent and the director manages to make you believe an entire environment with just a single set that consists of 3 walls, some make-up and models, and a bit of CG. Visually, the movie is stunning in its elegant simplicity and that's its strongest point. Unfortunately, the death scenes, while dramatic, often strain believability. A good example is the first one, where someone is "diced" by what we can presume is a mono-filament wire grid. People, however,are not bricks of cheese that fall apart in cubes. We are much more akin to a tomato or a water balloon and the effect used thus, while visually appealing, makes no sense at all.
But, in general, sense is not this movie's strong point. Film- making,and to a lesser extent , acting, are. And there it shines as a brilliant example of doing film on a tight budget.