By Geno McGahee
Breaking Glass Pictures releases RIDDLE ROOM, which is being advertised as a “SAW-inspired” film and I’m not sure if that’s a big selling point or not. I know that SAW has a lot of fans, but the film has inspired so many indie projects that it’s hard to imagine the fans not being sick of it. Whatever the case, we have the Bryan Binder film, which does have some SAW flavor, but fails to find any momentum. It’s not all bad, but it’s far from good.
Emily Burns (Marisa Ruby) awakens in a small room with wood paneling. She is confused and locked inside. She is visited by masked men, one of which is wearing a burlap sack and speaking through some recording device that makes whatever he says hard to understand. Thankfully, Emily is much closer and hears everything perfectly. It was more for her anyway.
The group of masked men begin torturing her, nearly drowning her at times, and demanding information on a project that she knows very little of. She tries and tries to escape, but there is no way out. In the next room over she discovers her friend, Amanda (Erika Hoveland), and she is also clueless as to what is going on and why she is there. Although the two are in the same situation, they are suspicious of each other and both seem to being hiding something, especially Amanda.
The burlap sack guy keeps coming in and saying a few things about a project and then leaving. Emily tries everything she can, including the usage of a box-cutter and gun to get her out of there, but she cannot make it happen. This leads to the conclusion and the big secret or twist of this film. Yeah, SAW has nothing to worry about here.
RIDDLE ROOM has issues with pacing and the activity and dialogue that transpires makes it difficult to make it to the conclusion of this film. I like SAW and I do see what the writer/director was trying to do, but he probably should have had somebody else write it. It’s just not there. It was shot very nicely and credit to Erika Hoveland for playing the role very well, but she didn’t have a great deal to work with and I don’t think that a lot of horror fans are going to be making it to the end of this film.
What made SAW so special was its ability to pace it and basically keep the film located in one room. There was an aura of mystery that was compelling and things were being thrown at you with regularity. Binder attempted to do this, but as I said, it just wasn’t there. If you are a die-hard SAW fan and want to see every film that found inspiration through it, then give RIDDLE ROOM a shot. Otherwise, I can’t recommend this. It was just too empty.
Rating: 3/10
