10 High Stakes Horrors You've Never Heard Of
9. Fermat's Room
Ever since seeing Star Wars: A New Hope’s trash compactor scene, I think all of us have harboured at least a slight fear of the walls closing in around us. For the most part this fear is completely unwarranted, as the chances of being crushed by the average room is low - but never zero.
In this 2007 Spanish feature, some of the country’s best mathematicians are invited to a convention of sorts by an elderly man using the alias ‘Fermat.’ Locked in a room, they are presented with a series of puzzles to solve. Should they fail to solve them or solve them outside of the given time limit, the walls close in bit by bit.
The average maths exam is stressful enough without death by crushing being your motivation to succeed. At the same time as trying to survive their ever-nearing death, the group have to figure out who it was that put them in this room and why.
It’s an escape-room style film minus the usual expectation of egregious gore and bloody tasks. Not every test-based movie has to be a Saw rip-off, and this one executes a simpler but equally tense premise well.