Issue # 2Breathing Room (2008) Review
by ManicallyDepressed
I’ll go straight to the point with this one: 0 asterisks.
(spoilers beyond this point.. but hey, you won’t be watching this, right?)
Where do I start? The story concerns a group of people trapped in a room forced to play a game of survival. The plot is actually very decent primarily because it is similar to the plot of the manga, Battle Royale. Being a huge fan of Battle Royale, I wanted to watch this film hoping to get a different experience on the horror-survival genre. Well, I did. And a shitty one.
First thing I don’t understand is the game itself. Do (1) they have to kill each other until one is left like in Battle Royale OR do (2) they have to figure out how to escape before they’re all killed by the “killer”? The problem is that the film fails in either view. In (1), the characters were not really “encouraged” to play the game. It lacks the psychological factor of the game which supposedly what makes the plot interesting to watch. There was one scene where a character was forced to kill because his daughter was kidnapped. Here’s my question: Why didn’t they kidnap someone for each of the players to force them to play? In addition to this, the film’s setting isn’t suitable for (1). Being trapped in a small room would mean that if someone initiated the killing, all hell would break loose, and in 5 minutes the movie would end (which is a good thing in this crappy movie).
On the other hand, in (2), I found most of the clues and items irrelevant. The only relevant item was the key and the only progress they made was when a new character was introduced, 30 minutes before the movie ends. That would mean that the deaths in the first hour of the movie were inevitable. The new character died before he can reveal the truth (that is so NOT a cliché). Even if he was able to reveal the truth, I didn’t see how that would help in the escape. Now that I think about it, the “progress” wasn’t not really progress. There was really no winning the game. Then what’s the point of the whole thing? The only way I can make sense about this film is going back to (1) which would mean we’ll be going around circles.
The ending was quite predictable near the end, since only three characters remain and you would definitely not choose the villain-looking character as the killer. I was emotionless upon the supposedly huge killer reveal maybe because I just didn’t care anymore. It was also revealed that the first one to “die” was a villain too. Who the hell cares? He was only seen in the first 10 minutes and didn’t really make any impact on the movie. It’s like watching Spiderman and the student bullying Peter Parker, who you just saw for 1 scene, was revealed at the end of the film to be plotting with the Green Goblin all along! The truth about the game was also revealed and again, I just didn’t care anymore.
The scares were one of the cheapest forms I’ve seen. Every 10 minutes or so, the lights went out for about a minute and a character died every blackout. That’s it. It’s supposedly super dark so the characters can’t see the killer, but red lights were on during the blackout. Though the lights are dim, I’m sure the characters should’ve seen at least the silhouettes of the others. Assuming they all can't see, then how did the killer do it? It has no sense at all. During the blackouts, I got dizzy from the fast changing camera angles and found myself just closing my eyes during the final blackouts. The sound effects including the screams of the characters were irritating and reminded me of how stupid the characters were. I mean why didn’t they hold each other during the blackouts? Gaaaah!
If you read Issue # 0, you know that you’ll being doing yourself a good thing if you stay away from this film. I sincerely hope this is my last zero-asterisks movie.
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