Spooky Scary Horrorthons 7 - Film #33

Typical of big companies to release a new fancy product so soon after the first one. The cube is not enough?! We really need the hypercube with the new design and fancy time manipulation functions? Totally not a cash grab, not at all. SO glad that Jigsaw entered the market to add some much needed competion in 2004, more deathtrap options can only benefit the customers!

This would make for a perfect double feature with The Room as they are both terrible films that seem to be made with the assumption that they are something far greater than they actually are. Cube 2: Hypercube has the added schlock bonus of being the followup to a film like Cube, an exciting sci-fi horror that presented a weird concept without wearing it out. This sequel does pretty much the same thing as the first one, only far worse and way less interesting. The cast of characters has almost doubled in size, and with the exact same story playing out as in the first one most of those added characters are little more than pointless filler. You'd at least hope that a greater cast would lead to some cheesy deaths but this one actually has less of that than the first one! How do you even mismanage a sequel this badly?!

Despite the budget being vastly increased since the first film, EVERYTHING just looks worse here. The special effects are outdone by early PS1 cutscene graphics and this little piece of crap came out when the PS2 had already been a thing for 2 years! The overall presentation is also just worsened, not disturbingly sterile such as the first film but just.. bland.

And I'm not a scientist, but I feel like the science of this sequel is just absurd. Now don't get me wrong, it was ridiculous in the first film as well but it seemed to follow some sense of internal logic. Here it is just such an endless barrage of time manipulation and whatever which would be fine if things were kept obscured but there are such attempts to establish a greater picture and by the end how can you even care?

So by doing what the first Cube was doing but worse, Hypercube is just a fascinating example of a sequel that is bigger than the first film in every way and yet somehow manages to look and feel cheaper in every way. A wonderful time if you need something awful to rip apart but as a competent product it falls apart very quickly.