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Breathing Room (2008/I) More at IMDbPro »

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25 out of 31 people found the following review useful:
Some suspense, although the game is rather stupid, 4 July 2008
5/10
Author: extracoolguy1 from Canada

Early on in the movie we learn that there are a bunch of people kidnapped and locked in a room. The 'host' is playing a 'game' with them, and it's the 'contestants' job to figure out whats going on. This movie kind of reminded me of the movie Saw(alone with its sequels). The problem is that the Saw movies teach a lesson in a way because if the individual is smart enough/deserves/wants to live, then they end up living. This isn't really like that. Although the contestants really did nothing wrong, only 1, at most, will survive. The contestants don't really stand a chance from the beginning.

The suspense was fairly good - which is the main reason i gave it a 5. Its not a film you'll fall asleep while watching and certainly interesting to watch. Acting was alright. However a big problem was the ending. The ending was not something I predicted, however, it made me feel unfulfilled and shows the stupidity of this 'game'. There was also not much of a climax - it always felt like they were building to something. It felt like they should have had a bigger climax before the ending. And then the ending comes, and it wasn't that shocking.

Overall, good concept, early and middle parts of the movie were good, but the ending was weak. 5/10

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13 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Ii felt like a lot of things where missing, 15 July 2008
4/10
Author: Lokado from Netherlands

I started to watch it with high expectations, the overall image i got from it was that it had good potential.

however, when I watched the video it felt like there was no real connections to the characters, they all die off to fast and a lot of the story is left to guesswork. It felt like most of the movie was trivial and just extra time fill. It's not that i mind that they kill people, but its just that somehow, their deaths didn't seem to be of any impact (on the story) whatsoever. The end(which i will not discuss further) didn't satisfy me at all.

I personally figured that it would be something like "the cube", but that was (in my opinion) a hope that I had set to high. After having sat through the whole movie I didn't feel like i had really enjoyed myself, the movie has some exciting parts but somehow they managed to mess it up. All in all, not a movie that i'd recommend unless you really have nothing better to do.

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27 out of 44 people found the following review useful:
A very unappealing rip off of the "Saw" series., 6 July 2008
3/10
Author: timb75 from United States

This film is for the most part just like the "Saw" series. More like Saw 1 actually then the other two though. You basically have a group of kidnapped people trapped in a room where they're picked off one by one till there is one person left who then gets to go free. The only real difference is this film is horrible. The sound effects were so fake sounding, the characters were annoying at best and the story went basically no where. The twists in this film were so lame and didn't really change the plot at all. It just wasn't scary enough either. You never see anything graphic which also brings this movie down. The Saw series completely blows this film out of the water. I'd pass on this one.

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20 out of 31 people found the following review useful:
Concept is trite but the execution is good, 4 July 2008
6/10
Author: refdan from United States

The film begins with a naked woman entering a room of strangers with in a warehouse type of setting. The strangers approach her and begin asking questions about who she is and what does she know about why she is here and what it's all about. The rest of the film involves learning about each other and little more about the "puzzle" of why they are here.

The premise is that there is game being played with the characters' lives. There are rules. If you break the rules, you die.

The plot is simple, but the interactions of the "players" is what keeps it interesting. Each "player" is unique and may or may not have something to hide.

I found the story interesting, but contrived. Some of the characters were a bit over-the-top for my taste, but most of them conveyed the fear, anger, and despair quite convincingly. The end of the film was a disappointment to me for reasons I won't divulge here.

I credit the producers for developing a good character study with very little investment. Good cinema doesn't always have to cost millions.

If you like a bare bones type production about human behavior in stressful conditions, then I recommend this to you.

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10 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Far Better Than The Ripoff Some Make This Out to Be, 7 October 2008
7/10
Author: Gavin Schmitt (gavin6942@yahoo.com) from Kaukauna, Wisconsin

Tonya (Ailsa Marshall) is dumped naked into a room with thirteen strangers. She is player fourteen in a sadistic game where only the survivors win. With each player given clues and tools to survive, who will be left? And who is behind this? Not everyone tells the truth, so can the players trust each other to keep themselves civil? You're going to see review after review comparing this film to "Saw", and some comparing it to "Battle Royale"... still others referencing lesser known films. And, it's true, there's a "Saw" vibe here and a "Battle Royale" vibe... but don't let that dissuade you. There is nothing new about survival horror and it won't go away any time soon. And, if done correctly, that's not a bad thing.

I've also seen certain comments concerning the low budget and overabundance of white light. I don't deny these aspects, but in complete honesty they didn't bother me one bit. As long as your film has an interesting story -- and this one does -- and isn't a complete shambles, you have me hook, line and sinker. My only issue with this film was that I had a very strong suspicion of the ending from the very beginning. I was even more convinced after a big clue was dropped in the interview scene.

Fans of "Saw" will like this, as will people who like puzzles, so long as they keep an open mind and don't judge it strictly on its low budget and similarities to other films. I was thoroughly engaged by the interesting characters, destruction of film stereotypes, and ultimately the very clever writing inherent in the picture. Allegedly this film was thrown together roughly overnight, but it doesn't show.

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8 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Boring, Unoriginal, Pointless and Disappointing, 10 June 2009
4/10
Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

A group of fourteen strangers wearing electronic necklaces are locked in a large room without any previous explanation. Sooner they are informed by a man in a monitor that they are participating of a deadly game, where the prize of the winner would be his or her own life, but they should follow certain rules to stay alive. Further, the man tells that there is one rapist, one murdered and one pedophile among them. Under the leadership of Lee (Michael McLafferty), the contestants try to resolve their own suspicions to survive.

After the original 1997 "Cube", there are many rip-offs of strangers locked in an environment participating of a sick game, like for example the franchise "Saw"; or "House of 9" or the 2006 "Unknown"; therefore, "Breathing Room" is unoriginal. Unfortunately "Breathing Room" is not even a "good rip-off" because the story is boring and annoying in some moments; and the unexplained conclusion of the scientific experiment the team was submitted is pointless and disappointing. Who are the scientists? What is the objective of the sadistic experiment? Why those persons have been selected to participate? The viewer has no answer for these simple questions; therefore the story and the screenplay absolutely fail. In the awesome 2001 "Das Experiment", there is a previous explanation for teaming-up the guinea pigs. However the acting is great and the actors and actresses are able to transmit their claustrophobic tension and pain to the viewers. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Quarto do Inferno" ("The Hell's Room")

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
holds no surprises, 14 July 2008
2/10
Author: Iratasan

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

this movie can be categorized into my favorite genre: "x people find themselves stuck in a room for no apparent reason to find out that they are part of some kind of cruel game whose rules they don't know yet". unfortunately this "genre" so far has only brought too much lame attempts and so little interesting concepts. so far i have enjoyed cube, saw (1-x), red room (1&2) and house of nine. the last one gets kinda boring after a while, but seen in full length makes up for it.

there are some major flaws in this piece from the very beginning. the amateurish look, feel, acting, lightning, cut and scene building might amuse/annoy on the first look, but with a strong story could have been ignored. that on closer look is not the major problem here. the script does not work on a full concept basis, it either lives from scene to scene which loses it's thrill within the first 30 minutes. even though the players get hints about the rules and about the game itself, if you try to put the puzzle together you will find that there really is nothing to gain in this "game", which is a letdown. when compared to the other mentioned movies it becomes clear, that the rules themselves are bogus, the scenario is senseless and that even the choice of contestants is random. in the other mentioned movies there are clear rules, a more or less clear goal, every player has a function within the game, in most cases we even get explained what function each player has within the games. this is not the case here. even more the outcome of the movie should become clear to everyone that is familiar with this kind of movies. this lick mostly tries to live by the suspense how the writers explain everything in the end. i lost interest after 60 minutes as i already have figured that ending out and not to my surprise my conclusion was exactly what was shown at the end of the movie.

some of this flaws i have already seen in "house of 9" which also gets pretty annoying towards the end, but eventually makes up for it with a clever conclusion.

i find this movie too effordless on an objective level and it is even more disappointing keeping in mind that so many movies before already had that concept and that the writers still did not even try to make this conclusive or clever. movies like that up to a certain point live or die by the ending/conclusion. this one fails to deliver.

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6 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
C grade horror movie, 13 July 2008
1/10
Author: burgif from Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Usually I don't mind remakes or even plagirism (when it comes to movie ideas)but I do mind very poor scripts, bad audio and talentless actors. As others have noticed that the makers of this movie were trying to copy SAW 1 and failed miserably, they failed to deliver the intensity of SAW, the convincing performance of the actors and above all failed to deliver the coherent story line of SAW. I lost real interest in this movie from the first scene where every one of the (victims) were in some place and all of them don't look agitiated by the fact they don't know how they end up there, The audio was awful, the actors failed to deliver acceptable performance. To sum it all, this movie was a waste of time.

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15 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
absolutely terrible, 3 July 2008
1/10
Author: teonanacatl from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

this movie is saw and cube with no budget and no brains. you can tell absolutely no money was put into this film by the 2$ hose clamps that they all wear as "electrical collars". that should be a pretty clear sign that they really don't give a care in the world about how their movie looks. which is further reinforced by the lighting. tip to the film makers: 50 tube fluorescent lights will absolutely destroy every shot you take unless you have expensive post production tools, and they don't sell them at the hardware store where you bought the collars. the acting is C grade, plot is completely stolen, the twist at the end is more like a faceplant into a grave, and the whole atmosphere reeks of i want everyone to die immediately. seriously, you will not care about any of the characters whatsoever and just hope that they have a gory death asap.

i could not say more bad things about this film, except maybe that i hope the producers and director quit forever after this. as well as all the actors, especially the old women. there's nothing that destroys a horror film more then screeching old women with more wrinkles in their face and fat flapping off their neck then there are molecules in the universe.

do not watch.

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5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Woefully bad composed "Horror"-movie, 31 July 2008
1/10
Author: lord_agin from Germany

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I am not a big fan of horror movies, and nasty examples like "Breathing Room" are the main cause for it. For a non-magical horror movie to entertain me, it must, above everything else, have one thing: an intelligent and satisfying end. I don't say that the good guys have to win, but at least the movie should end in a fashion that shows me, that all the crimes committed were not only possible, but also have the bad guys a working plan on how to get away with all of their crimes, and that is something I completely miss in this movie. Following are my main points of criticism:

[1] As I understood it, all the murders were committed while the white light was out and a soft red light was on (with the exception of the three to five seconds of the actual murders, during which it was pitch black, making it impossible to see anything not only for the victim, but also for the killer). That should not keep anybody from seeing what was done and who executed the deed, I mean, she would have to move towards her victim and be panting afterwards, if she really did run so fast (and often). The filmmakers tried to hide this fact behind a lot of camera-jiggling and -wobbling, which should imply that nobody saw clearly, but I found it plainly ridiculous.

[2] What was her (and her cronies) motive? What did they gain from this carnage? This topic is never even touched once.

[3] How did the killers meet? I refuse to believe that you just "find" a bunch of people who are willing to abduct and butcher completely innocent people by the dozen, or at least help the actual killer to do so.

[4] How did they plan on disposing of the enormous amount of bodies?

Apart from that, the acting was mostly average, and thus far from credible for an impossible situation like this.

I gave this movie 1 star, because I really regard it as a shameful waste of my time. Don't believe me? Go waste 90 minutes of your own time.

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