Director: Matt Shaw
Year: 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Psychological
Plot:
After being sentenced to death by lethal injection, a man awakes in a strange box and is unable to leave. Served utilities to be kept alive and occasionally instructed by a stranger to think back on why he’s there, he can only think of the incident that initially signed his fate when he killed the man who he thought had been having an affair with his wife, the longer he stays in the box and tortured psychologically about the incident, his mental sanity snaps as he struggles to come to terms with his captors’ demands to come to terms with the incident
Review:
There was a lot to like with this effort. The film works incredibly well by exploiting its simplistic premise, finding ways to ensure the days he spends inside the box are filled with psychological torments and tactics. As he originally finds that the inability to escape and is constantly fed food and water while the distorted voice informs him of the purpose behind the visit, it builds a tense, bleak tone that carries out the longer he stays trapped inside. The more he goes through, from the torturer’s taunting and failure to follow through on his promises and bring about a sense of despair the longer he stays there with little ope for esca[e carries this one along with very little to change that regardless of the revelations that come about regarding the attack on the adulterer or the trial that put him on death row.
Moreover, once this goes into the series of tortures that are utilized here showing the treatment he goes through inside the box, it gets rather interesting. The notion of going for gross-outs in the form of extreme bodily functions and disturbing tasks that’s quite surprising to see go through that route. The trickery of switching out food for laxatives that force him to defecate and ruin the inside of the box, using more threats that mean drinking other expelled bodily functions as part of the tasks to try to get out do the film rather well in order to enhance the despair and bleakness present elsewhere in here. These aspects all come together to give the film a rather enjoyable atmosphere about it.
There are some slight factors to bring it down. The main issue is that the singular approach the film takes ends up bringing about parts where it repeats itself several times over. The disembodied voice over the loud-speaker engaging in conversation to bring about the truth behind the fateful day and his current situation and the endless scenes of him trying and failing to break out which are already well-established at an early part of the film so the later scenes just carry on repeating this factor are just several of the tactics employed here that make this one feel repetitive as if this would’ve worked better as a short rather than a feature film especially with only a singular character being focused on in this manner. With a final outcome that’s quite easy to guess simply because it’s used often, these hold this one down slightly.
Overview: ***.5/5
One of the better pandemic-shot genre efforts out there, this one manages to carry a lot to like with only a few minor drawbacks that crop up which aren’t that detrimental or damaging anyway. Fans of the creative crew, those unbothered by the flaws or intrigued by this style of film will be well-advised to check it out while viewers who aren’t as interested in those aspects should heed caution before venturing into this one.
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