Last week Josie Fraser got heady with the brain scanner from Brainstorm, this week our own Phillip Torrone steps in with one of his favorite movie gadgets, the room-sized torture boxes from CUBE:

Imagine waking up trapped with seven strangers in a seemingly endless maze of small metal rooms, slowly realizing that only a secret mathematical formula can set you free, all while trying not to get killed by your fellow box dweller. Yeah, it's more less a metaphor for the rat race, just with somewhat gorier endings.


Vincenzo Natali cranked out CUBE at the ripe old age of 28, which he wrote with long time pal Andre Bijelic and fellow Canadian Film Centre graduate Graeme Manson.

Perhaps the greatest feat of a movie like this is Natali?s use of only one room sized set for the entire film. Each character: a cop, a math wiz, a building designer, a doctor, an escape master, and a disabled man?have skills to help them survive and solve the puzzle to make it to the outer shell of the cube, but in the end there can only be one who makes it out. The part we liked best, well besides the use of prime numbers, was that each room was filled with machines designed to kill you, from wires that would slice and dice you, to motion sensors that?ll set you on fire.


hidden doorsCUBE stars Nicole deBoer, Nicky Guadagni, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller, Julian Richings, Wayne Robson and Maurice Dean Wint. For the Sci-Fi geek, David Hewlett later went on to star in Stargate: Atlantis as Dr. Rodney McKay.

Side note: For those looking to cube-out on their own and have secret doors, you?re in luck. A company called Hidden Doors is ready willing and able to install secret doors just about anywhere in your house?seven captured strangers and torture devices not included.

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