Fear, Paranoia, Suspicion, Desperation: Welcome to Cube

We're gonna keep the ball rolling with movies that mess with your head. Last post we discussed Donnie Darko and as soon as I remembered that movie another came to mind; hence this post. Here comes a little film with an equally little budget from Canada, how good can it be? This were my thoughts as I put Cube in the dvd player, not knowing what to expect. The first thing you see is a man who wakes up in odd room; cubical in dimensions, with a door on each wall, one on the ceiling, and one on the floor. He opens a door, and beyond it is the same type of room, except a different color. As he continues to explore we learn at his expense that this place is not only confusing to navigate, but is booby trapped. I imagine half of the movie's budget was used in this guys demise, and the funny thing is that he is never mentioned again after that. But this opening scene succeeds in getting your attention and then it just never lets go. We meet a group of people, all strangers to each other, who slowly realize they're all from a different walk of life and have to use their respective skills to figure a way out of the cube, but as the film goes on we see it isn't so much about the cube as it is about the human psyche and far it can go before it snaps. We see what paranoia and desperation can do to somebody in a high stress situation, and it's not pretty. Seek this one out.