The Box

When I see a big budget studio film that's bound to appeal only to a very niche audience, it causes me to wonder how it got made in the first place and to admire the kind of special talent it takes to convince a studio to back a project that's almost certain to fail.

Whoever pulled that trick off with The Box must be one skilled freak of nature because nothing about this film says "yeah, let's put $30 million into this!" It's an adaptation of a semi-obscure Richard Matheson short story that doesn't really have any action per se, it's not quite a horror film (it has its share of creepy moments but you couldn't call it outright horror), it's not what Hollywood thinks of sci-fi anymore (no giant robots), and oh yeah - it's a period piece set in the '70s.

So while The Box isn't likely to become a hit, my thanks go out to writer/director Richard Kelly for pushing all the right buttons with me. Sure, this probably could've used some tightening - The Box sags in the middle before snapping back for the climax - but I never felt impatient to get out of the world that Kelly had created. There's something innately comforting about the film's warm '70s vibe coupled with the weird conspiratorial atmosphere closing in around the lives of Arthur and Norma Lewis (James Marsden and Cameron Diaz). It's somehow eerie and homey at the same time and those are two things I like.

Some will undoubtedly find The Box to be a pretty package with nothing in it but it turned out to be just what I was looking for - a big scale Twilight Zone tale filled with moral quandaries, spaced-out sci-fi and '70s shout-outs. Click over to Shock Till You Drop for my full review.

Inspecting The Box

Having picked up writer/director Richard Kelly's The Box and shaken it, via the new trailer online now, I'm anxious to rip it open. I haven't read the 1970 Richard Matheson short story "Button, Button" that this is based on or seen the previous adaptation (directed by The Changeling's Peter Medak), which aired as an episode of the '80s Twilight Zone revival, but I like what I see here. Although it's set in the '70s, it doesn't look like Kelly is exploiting the decade for its kitschy, camp aspects. I'm not sure why Kelly determined that The Box ought to be a period piece but given the elements of paranoia and conspiracy seen here, maybe he believed this story naturally fit in the decade that put paranoia on the map with films like Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, and All the President's Men. Whatever the case, it looks like The Box stands a good chance of being an ideal match with Kelly's idiosyncratic style and a mainstream thriller.

On a separate note, I find it funny that the distinctive Saw music appears in this trailer given that The Box is due in theaters the week after the latest Saw installment (VI for those who've lost count). I've heard the Saw music used in other trailers (like Valkyrie) but in this case, with The Box infringing on Saw's turf ("If it's Halloween, it must be Saw!"), it seems like a deliberate thrown down on the part of the marketing people. If that's so, I'm all for it. Anything that takes the Halloween season back from the Saw films is good with me - if there were a button to push to make that happen, consider it pushed.