No thriller, but very scary

Enchorde

Recap: A group of different men sign up for a well-paid psychological experiment. At the start they are divided into two groups, prisoners and guards. The prisoners are locked into cells in the university's basement and the guards are charged with the task to keep order and that the prisoners follow certain rules. But the power of authority is not easily handled...

Comments: No thriller no, at least not if you ever heard of the Stanford Experiment, which this movie is closely based upon. But knowing just that, that the movie is so closely based upon a real event, that makes it very scary. The implications are dreadful. That ordinary people, you and me, just given the right circumstances may turn into the worst kind, and not stop even at murder. That people may be guided and taught to be pure monsters. And that this seems to happen over and over again around the world. So, for me, there were no real surprises, no real thrill because I knew how it would go, mostly. But I didn't dare leave the TV. It was just scary, and not horror-film scary, but real scary.

As for the movie, it is very well made. There is a slow but inevitable development. Acting is good and directing too. It uses different viewpoints and cameras, as surveillance-cameras for effect. The only thing is that there were some subplots, subplots that faded away during the movie, that might just as well been cut from the beginning. Mostly I'm talking about Tarek's journalist aspiration, but there were others.

Definitely worth a watch. Not as the fun movie to entertain you but almost as an educational, a reminder that each and every one of us are responsible for our own actions, and responsible to stop abuse when we see it.

7/10

score 7/10

Enchorde 31 October 2008

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1968227/