The Killing Room (2009)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Blistering performances.

Okay, little different review this time. Let's gather the stars. I really like and hunt this kind of movies. Trapped/surviving kind of films. Especially when actors and filming scenes are very limited. I really like that. This gives alone 3/10 stars to any movie.Let's continue. About the story line and script. It's pretty dumb. You actually do not know anything what's going on. No, not even when the movie ends. This... Ah.. This feels like just pointless. I really can't even say what they were researching. Script goes just way too far and it gets complex and confusing. Is that good movie when you don't get the idea of the film? Or what is happening? I don't think so. No stars this time. 3/10Next the execution. All the actors did quite good job. They acted well and the atmosphere was intriguing and mysterious, somewhat tensed through the whole movie. But one word about that situation with woman... I hate it. I-f******-hate-it. Generally any movie which has the situation where someone do something, and suddenly that action was only imagination/dream, should be rated 0/10. It's most idiotic thing in the movie industry. BUT, apart from that, the filming was executed quite nicely. Let's give 2 stars from here.Conclusion 5/10. Good acting and the style of filming save this movie from catastrophe. I didn't like the screenplay. It's just too weird and profound for my taste. Not the best movie, but not the worst. Average movie in trapped/surviving genre.

This is one of those dumb thrillers that you straight away give up on, in terms of expecting a logical wrap-up. You just know: "Whatever they do, no matter how hard they try, they will not be able to make any of this make sense in the end. It would take sheer one-in-a-million genius to tie up this nonsense in any kind of half-way logical and rational manner". In fact, even this is an optimistic notion. The movie goes above and beyond the call of duty and serves up an explanation far dumber than could be expected even by the likes of myself. They truly "exceeded all expectations" by coming up with a twist that even an amoeba would be embarrassed to stick into its script.So just how dumb is the movie? The premise: a mysterious organization conducts violent, murderous, sadistic experiments on random U.S citizens, as part of their "mind control" experiments. The silver lining in all this nonsense: the movie turns out not to be about mind control because, frankly, that'd be too dumb, even for the likes of De Palma, Stephen King, John Woo, Dario Argento or Hitchcock – the masters of illogic. You collect a bunch of people to have them killed one-by-one in a room to find out which one has ESP powers? That would have been the dumbest premise of all time. Or not? Astoundingly, the real explanation turns out to be actually even sillier: the point of the whole sadistic nonsense is to find people who'd make good suicide-bombers against Islamic terrorists!!!!! (I hope I typed enough exclamation marks.) The rationalization being that you have to "fight fire with fire". Except that "fighting fire with fire" was never intended to be taken LITERALLY. Fighting fire with fire does not mean using the SAME weapons or strategy as the opposing side; it merely means using violence to fight violence, or to be just as ruthless as the enemy. (A very basic concept that peacenik libtards will never ever be quite able to grasp because they exist in a cozy Disney bubble which was created for them, ironically enough, by capitalism and military might which they consider the two greatest evils.)They could have just put out an ad saying "GOVERNMENT LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS TO BE SUICIDE BOMBERS". Stupid? Yes, sure. But even that would have made more sense – and certainly would have reduced the number of American VICTIMS – which this lunatic program was ultimately - supposedly - about. (The irony is so thick it could be used as a shield in a Star Trek episode.) A secret program that is intended to PROTECT U.S. citizens ends up killing hundreds!!!!! (Exclamation marks multiply without my control in this review.) Just what kind of an infantile mind comes up with these daft hollywoodisms? Does EVERYONE get free lobotomies and the best Bolivian mushrooms in Tinseltown? The first U.S. thrillers were dumb to begin with, they always were, but as the years go on they just seem to get progressively idiotic.Just think about it: America actually needing suicide bombers to fight extremist Islam. How exactly is that supposed to work in practice? Besides, doesn't the American military have plenty of superior weaponry to neutralize its militarily inferior enemies without having to strap bombs onto civilians? Or are the extremely zombified writers of this cretinous mess implying that Americans need to start killing the enemy's civilians randomly in order to beat them? That obviously wouldn't work because ISIS and the Taliban couldn't give a hoot about their own civilian casualties. Did Stalin give a hoot about Russian civilians? (After all, Islamic extremists mercilessly butcher each other all the time.) So, yes, the ENTIRE premise is idiotic – from every conceivable angle, not just from the point of view of the methods of recruitment they use, this idiotic "test" of patriotism and will.What will the sequel be about? Perhaps the military will seek to find people who can grow wings more easily than others. Will that entail experiments in which random civilians get thrown out of flying airplanes? "Mr. Stormare, this doesn't look good at all. We've pushed 190 non-volunteers from flying airplanes so far and none of them grew wings or at least showed the tiniest potential in developing flying skills." Or perhaps the sequel (appropriately titled "More Killing Rooms Coz We Just Love To See Them Squirm and Suffer For No Valid Reason") will be this inane mystery organization trying to collect Americans who have a high midiclorian count? In order to find these potential Jedis, "the organization" will hand out swords to captives and see which one of them loses the least limbs in a great big battle royale. Those who come out on top in sword-and-sorcery move up to the next experiment level which entails the guinea-pigs having to lift entire buildings with their Jedi powers. All who fail to do so get massacred on the spot by evil "genius" Stormare, who seems to enjoy killing civilians a tad too much for someone who wants to protect his country.Surely, even the dumbest movie-goers must have noticed how unscathed the black guy came out of after having been repeatedly pummeled by Hutton. That guy didn't have so much as a blood stain right after Hutton finished handing out vicious, numerous punches at him. That alone exemplifies the utter stupidity and laziness of the glue-sniffing clowns who concocted this drivel.

The premise of the film is valid and worthy of exploration. The execution of the film is a mixture of brilliant voyeuristic witnessing of how humans can react to extreme circumstances and of clichéd (yet in the context of the plot) inappropriate Hollywood techniques (the most annoying of which are the ludicrously unnecessary 'lunar space mission' communications we hear as the experiment progresses. Overall though, a very worthwhile watching experience with a genuinely surprising twist at the end. I, like many, was on occasion reminded of the Saw films but this is definitely far enough removed from them to make it valid and justified. Overall, a good, clever and satisfying film and I'm definitely going to watch the sequel.

I wanted so much to like this film. The premise sounded great and it really is the kind of movie I usually enjoy. Unfortunately, the tag line was the best part of this, it all when downhill from there. The story was bland and unappealing and the "big" twist at the end just makes you wanna slap the screenwriter.*Spoiler ahead* I guess they thought they were pretty clever by diverting expectations and showing the audience some stuff that doesn't actually happen. But instead it just makes the main character look like a heartless bitch. Which is even worse, as they previously showed her actually having a conscience.And the absolute WORST of all this was the sound constantly shifting from "barely audible" to "ear drum shattering". What the hell?! i couldn't make out what they were saying half the time. For a movie that has intellectual pretences, that is bad. So, so bad.