Death Tube Review

• 7th Sep 2010

Usually it’s the western world that steals ideas from Asia and remakes them into big fluffy Hollywood horrors.  This is a case of nature in reverse as this Asian title takes an idea from the Hollywood system and reduces it to a cheap version.

We are talking about the Saw movies here – for the main part anyway.  Eight people find themselves abducted and forced to play a game and if they don’t pass the rounds then death takes its toll on them. What we get is some crafty writing on the film-makers parts to help make this video shot film work. The horror effects range from gruesome (the opening shots of a man being decapitated are genuinely well shot) to actually quite rubbish (a large ball hitting a team member on the back of the head looks comical and poorly executed).

You can tell that only a handful of locations were used for this film, especially in the rooms the eight people wake up in – as it is obviously the same room redressed slightly.

There is also some clumsy scene setting as well particularly in the obstacle course scene where they have to complete several tasks before reaching the end of a line. One character falls down and is constantly re-doing the same action so pathetically that it may cause you to shout out loud how rubbish they are.

Unlike the Hollywood system, these film makers are not afraid to push the boundaries of taste and reality. Sometimes it can be a bit too weird and surreal for western audiences, but the points of the film remain intact. If only it wasn’t filmed so badly on the cheap it could have been a sweet little cult movie.

Horror enthusiasts will want to watch this baby not just for the ingenuity of working on the cheap, but also as an expansion of how twisted Asian cinema can be in their wicked ideas and playful narratives.

Steven Hurst