Caught between a rock and a hard place
James Francos true-to-life character Aron Ralston in
Danny Boyles
127 Hours is just the latest in a line of trapped characters in confined space thrillers. These films have innovatively placed singular or multiple characters into limited geographical spaces to turn up the tension tenfold and consequently give audiences an equally gruelling claustrophobic experience. I decided to take a look at five other tales of cinematic entrapment.
Buried (2010)
The fear of being buried alive is a very real condition called taphophobia (translated from the Greek taphos: fear of graves). Its also a grisly urban legend that has lent itself to an
Edgar Allan Poe tale or two. But director
Rodrigo Cortes takes the notion to its claustrophobic cinematic extremes in
Buried - refusing to deviate from
Ryan Reynolds wooden resting place he plunges both the said protagonist and the audience into a suffocating six feet under predicament.
Devil (2010)
Last year also saw another popular claustrophobic human fear realised in cinemas - that of being trapped in an overcrowded lift. To add insult to injury the five assembled strangers here have to contend with the prospect of Satan within their midst. Cue devilishly tense disaster movie consequences.
Saw (2004)
The original instalment of the torture porn series was all the more nerve-wrecking for following a (deceptively) simple but terrifying premise: two men awake to find themselves chained in a derelict bathroom with time ticking away to impending doom. Mirroring Aron Ralstons very real
127 Hours situation, the pairs only hope of survival is to use a blunt instrument to saw through their appendages. But do they have the equal nerve to undertake such a grisly task?
Lifeboat (1944)
Confined spaces were never more intense and sharply executed than by the rotund Master of Suspense
Alfred Hitchcock. He had a childhood fear of them himself thanks to being jailed for five minutes at the request of his father to teach him a lesson in prudence. This is what we do to bad boys said the copper. The police became a reoccurring target throughout his oeuvre but in Lifeboat a group of survivors aboard their titular vessel have to contend with sharing space with one of the men responsible for their ships destruction.
Rope and
Rear Window would later complete a Hitchcock trilogy of confined space terror.
Phone Booth (2002)
And now for the one man confined in a single location Hitchcock homage:
Colin Farrell is the smart alec salesman trapped inside a New York phone box with a sniper threatening to shoot to kill if he tries to redial. Although
24 style split-screen indulgences distract from the essentially singular setting,
Joel Schumacher and B movie master
Larry Cohen strip Farrells plight to its suspenseful bare essentials: an average man, in a box, with a lot to lose. Any other cinematic tales of entrapment we have forgotten? Do let us know...