Cube Zero is a clever, creepy, and surprisingly inventive. The plot is your standard Cube fare, for the most part: a disparate group of amnesiacs find themselves imprisoned within an unending series of booby-trap-laden chambers. The smartest and least confrontational prisoners survive to figure out the cube's design structure, leading to a blood-drenched trek to the exit signs. But added here, in the third trip to Cube County, is a slick and satisfying subplot involving some of the Cube's "operators".

First-time writer/director Barbarash has figured out a canny way to open up the series' structure, doling out a few long-overdue answers - while not spoiling the mystery of the crazy Cubism altogether.

Performance-wise, this third chapter might be the best movie of the bunch. Young Canadian actor Zachary Bennett offers some particularly strong work, here playing an ingenious Cube technician who has a sudden change of heart before tossing himself into the stadium-sized deathtrap...on purpose!

Cube Zero moves along at a brisk pace, doling out its death-knells in a reliable cadence, delivering a surprisingly solid balance between high-end gore and a nifty narrative that actually makes sense. (Those who struggled through Hypercube know what I'm talking about.) It's a Part 3 Slasher Flick mixed with a particularly nasty Rod Serling-style nightmare as written by a math wiz, and it's a sequel that does its part to right a series that could have been destined for the oblivion of fanboy apathy.

review courtesy of efilmcritic.com