The Last Sect (2006)

"Once you join us you'll see this isn't a Heaven you have to suffer to enter..."

I don't mind a good bad film. Bad films can be enormous fum, as all right-thinking people know. No: there is no sin but being boring. And crikey, this films- about good looking, vaguely kinky female vampires, for Pete's sake is oh, so desperately and soul crushingly dull.

So what went wrong? No one sets out to make a bad film, after all. And it is, at least, interesting, to see the very 2006 attitudes to the internet and to online dating, by no means an accepted thing at that point, as well as mild social commentary about the dating experience for women and for men. The cinematography is good, despite the vaguely washed out look which has dated somewhat but I remember at the time being a tiresome trend... but it's done well. The cast, is good by and large. I mean, yes, David Carradine phones in his performance a bit, a wise decision with this script, but he oozes charisma nonetheless. And the soundtrack by the Duke Spirit, something else that's very 2006, is utterly wonderful.

But it's soooo slooow. At first the talkiness is ok. But the characters, who are dull anyway, just talk and talk and nothing ever happens. Yes, the film looks good, but that's because the set oieces are kept to a minimum, there doesn't seem to be any location filming, and it's ninety minutes of exposition and talking and talking and talking and oh my god hw much longer do I have to try to concentrate. We're talking possibly the dullest lesbian kiss in cinematic history here.

I can't think of any reason whatsoever why anybody would want to put themselves through tfhis ilm. I beseech you: don't suffer as I did.

Cube (1997)

"This may be hard for you to understand, but there is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It's a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan."

Wow. What a gloriously cynical concept- a giant Rubik's cube, with 17,526 cubes, some with deadly traps, into which people are placed from time to time for reasons seemingly lost in the mists of time. It's a superb concept and, as it happens, a brilliant film. Not bad for a film requiring so few sets.

Indeed, it's not just the superb concept, neat plot and gruesome deaths that make this film work, but the carefully orchestrated mix of characters. The limited sets makes this feel something like a stage play (not often said of films like this) which emphasises this.

We have, firstly, the contrast between the reactionary Quentin and the left-wing conspiracy theorist Holloway, alongside the cynical Worth, mathematical prodigy Leaven and autistic savant Kazan, the only survivor. The relationship between Quentin and Holloway, and their inevitable clash, is handled superbly. Quentin, of course, turns out to hide a murderous anger beneath his UKIP-friendly views, making him the definite villain. Holloway is too strident, so she dies. Worth is morally compromised, so he cannot be allowed to live. And Leaven must die because she's too clever by half. The only survivor is Kazan, seemingly the least equipped to survive.

Oh, and we get the big twist; their best chance of survival would have been to stay in the room they started in. It's a satisfying end to a well plotted and characterised film with a kick ass concept. Cube is brilliant. And that's another reference in The Cabin in the Woods that I now get.