History Film / Cube

* MindScrew: The first movie intentionally gives no explanations for anything. The second and third movies do, but as they were written and directed by different people, they can't get the internal logic straight. The DVDCommentary on the first one states in no uncertain terms that the world outside the cube does not exist. It doesn't withhold explanations as much as erase every possibility that explanations could exist.

* CanadaEh: A Canadian film, although probably the only hints would be a single mention of Saskatoon and the way Leaven refers to the letter "z" as "zed."

[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Tagline}} Don't Look For A Reason...Look For A Way Out.]]]]

** Leaven, the team mathematician, also takes much longer than she should in working out if a number is prime or not, given it ends in a 5, and then factors a more difficult composite number relatively quickly. The worst case would have to be when she has to stop and think if 372 (an ''even number'') is prime.

The three movies are each based on the same premise; there is a gigantic, mechanical, cube-shaped structure (the purpose and origin of which are almost completely unknown) that is made up of lots of smaller cube-shaped rooms. Each of these rooms has 6 doors, one on each wall and one on the ceiling and one on the floor, which lead into adjacent, identical rooms, only differing by color. Some of these rooms are safe, while others are equipped with booby traps such as flamethrowers and razorwire which kill a person who enters the room.

''Cube Zero'' was slightly different from the original two movies in that it also dealt with some people on the outside of the cube whose job it was to control the cube and oversee those within. It also attempted to answer some of the questions of the series.

Not to be confused with ''Film/TheCube''. A [[ForeignRemake Japanese Remake]] of the first film was released in October 2021.

* CutAndPasteEnvironments: All of the rooms look the exact same minus the colors; justified because it's a maze. The set of the first movie actually ''is'' the same room over and over, with differently colored lights. (They didn't even have the budget to use six different colors like they wanted to, so it gets somewhat repetitive.)

* HollywoodAcid: One of the characters meets his end when a trap splashes acid in his face.

* KillerCop: [[spoiler: What Quentin reveals to be, as he introduces himself as a beat cop in life, but becomes a murderer when he's had enough. Assuming he's telling the truth about being a cop...]]

** After [[spoiler:Holloway almost falls to her death climbing outside of the Cube, Quentin lunges out and grabs the clothing she was using as a rope. He pulls the rope back up, and [[TakeMyHand grabs Holloway's hand]]; both of them are relieved. [[WhatYouAreInTheDark And then Quentin's expression hardens.]] [[OhCrap Holloway's turns to fear.]] [[KickTheDog He then lets go.]]]]
** Immediately after [[spoiler:Leaven remarks "[[LastWords I can live with that.]]", her face suddenly explodes into shocked pain as we hear a stabbing noise]]. She then rises up... because, as we soon see, [[spoiler:she has been impaled on a sharp object, [[TheCatCameBack held by Quentin]]]].
* WhereItAllBegan: In a cruel twist of fate, the test subjects [[spoiler:learn that the exit room was the very room they started out in, making their trek through the titular deathtrap dungeon a pointless waste of time and human life (although they wouldn't have found Kazan if they had stayed put, but then again, he might have gone off wandering on his own before everyone else woke up)]].
* TheWorldsExpertOnGettingKilled: [[spoiler:The group of people trapped in the death maze are quickly joined by Rennes aka "The Wren", a notorious escape artist who has gotten out of six- seven- different prison around the world. He introduces the idea of checking trapped rooms by throwing their boots in, advises the others to focus only on getting out [[AHouseDivided lest they turn on each other]] and promises to get them all out of there if they can keep up. He dies minutes after being introduced due to a molecular-chemical sensor he didn't notice.]]

* YouWakeUpInARoom: Or a cube, in this case. The characters all awaken, totally stumped as to where they are or how they got there.

* TakeMyHand: Subverted. As [[spoiler:Holloway]] is lowered into the unthinkable abyss outside the Cube by the other characters, using a rope made of their clothes, the structure shakes and everyone drops the rope. She begins to fall and [[spoiler:Quentin]] is the only one who quickly manages to grab the slipping rope, almost getting pulled down himself. He then manages to pull back all of the rope and grab [[spoiler:Holloway]]'s hand, [[spoiler:but just as she lets out a sigh of relief his smile turns to a psychopathic stare and he drops her]].
* TheTeaser: The opening scene depicts the death of an unrelated character, setting the mood for the movie.
* TraitorShot: In the beginning, Worth gets a fairly extreme and suspicion-raising closeup. About halfway through the movie, he confesses that he helped design the Cube the characters are trapped in.
* TheUnReveal: The movie ends just [[spoiler:as the lone survivor has found the exit and manages to escape]]. To twist the knife further, [[spoiler:he's so severely mentally disabled that he would be unable to tell anyone what he discovered]]. Then, according to ''Cube Zero'', [[spoiler:Kazan started the incident as one of the Cube ''operators'']], meaning he's known from the first second just how fucked up the monstrosity was.

* RightHandVersusLeftHand: Discussed. It's eventually revealed that the giant death maze in which the protagonists find themselves trapped was--bizarrely--built without a genuine purpose. One of the architects who worked on the project concluded that there wasn't a [[EvilPlan malevolent master plan]] behind it, but was the result of a bureaucratic mix-up with separate agencies all working on different parts of the structure and putting people in it without knowing about each other's existence. Whether he's right is ultimately left up in the air.
* RRatedOpening: The dispatching of the initial prisoner is... graphic.
* SirSwearsalot: Quentin. While the amount of profanity in the movie as a whole isn't particularly remarkable, the fact that about 90% of comes out of his mouth certainly is. Especially when he nearly gets killed.

* SarcasticDevotee: A good part of the film is spent establishing Worth as a villainous character - [[spoiler:and he is indeed eventually revealed to have some relation to their predicament]] - but in the end, he proves to be more heroic than de facto TheCaptain Quentin.
* ScaryBlackMan: Quentin -- a police officer -- starts out as the apparent hero and leader of the victimized group. [[spoiler: However, the stress of the situation [[SanitySlippage erodes his sanity]], and he ends up becoming the film's biggest threat, besides the dangerous Cube itself.]]

* PrisonEscapeArtist: Rennes is a French escape artist known for getting out of jails. [[spoiler:Subverted when he triggers a fatal booby trap shortly after he's introduced. There'll be no easy way out of the Cube, folks.]]

* RazorFloss: Grids of such wire are used in the series to kill off the first character we see in ''Cube''. Many traps in the movie are like this.
* {{Room 101}}: While never specifically revealed, there is some speculation that the Cube is one of these. Even if you manage to live through the [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom deadly deathtraps of death]], the massive psychological horror experienced within might make you wish you hadn't. [[spoiler:And that's only if the people ''outside'' the Cube don't immediately kill you.]]

* TheLoad: Kazan starts out this way. He's an autistic who is somehow able to survive in the Cube long enough to meet the other characters, especially given his knack for springing traps. Near the end it's discovered that he has a ''very'' useful skill, as he can perform the arithmetic required for navigating the cube extremely fast.

* MeaningfulEcho: Partway through the movie, Quentin says "Trust me on this. It's my job to read people like an x-ray." This is later echoed as "[[spoiler:Try and see what I see. How my mind works. The flash when I look into someone's head like a ''fucking x-ray'']]!", turning a previously innocuous line into proof of [[spoiler:[[SanitySlippage just how crazed and delusional he really is]]]].

* MindScrew: The film intentionally offers no real explanations to what the Cube is and why the characters were placed in it. It just developed by itself, with one architect behind it saying, "Because it's here. You either use it, or admit it's pointless" (which, in and of itself is pretty mind-screwy).

* MobileMaze: The Cube is a highly malicious, non-sentient (we hope) one. Near the end of the first movie the characters discover to their horror that all the rumbling machinery they've been hearing are rooms shifting around and they've been jumping from multiple locations the whole time. The Cube is only escapable when a specific room reaches the outer edge before the entire things locks and the room makes its next days-long journey through the maze. [[spoiler:It's in fact the very room they started out in.]]

* OffscreenTeleportation: [[spoiler:Quentin]], now insane, gets pulled down into a cube room and left by the other survivors, who have to use the composite of their knowledge and mathematical prowess to figure out how The Cube works and avoid the traps. [[spoiler:They manage to get to the exit but then [[DiabolusExMachina he shows up, kills Leaven and mortally wounds Worth]].]] How he managed to get there without their aid to avoid trapped rooms and to figure out the final pieces of The Cube's puzzle is unknown. Even if he did somehow get there by sheer blind luck, Leaven and Worth also don't notice him opening the door, which is quite loud and clunky. That in itself leans on BreakingTheFourthWall- The door opening sound effect is played before Quentin reappears. Be honest, viewer- Did you hear it?