Richard Kelly’s The Box

THE BOX is the new movie from Richard Kelly, the brains behind DONNIE DARKO and SOUTHLAND TALES. The basic premise is this: a young couple (Cameron Diaz / James Marsden) open their front door and find on their doorstep a strange box, containing a big red button. If they push this button they will get $1,000,000 – but someone they don’t know will die. This is explained to them by a strangely disfigured, mysterious government type (played by the ever excellent Frank Langella). So far, so intriguing.

That’s pretty much all I know about it. That’s because I’ve tried to stay away from reading much about THE BOX as I think it’ll be one of those movies that can easily be spoiled by a careless preview or a disgruntled fan – and I love going into movies completely cold if at all possible. So, apart from watching the trailer (which you can watch at the bottom of this page), which makes the movie look fantastic and makes me desperate to know more, I really knew very little about the movie.

Until this week, when Richard Kelly started tweeting about it during a press junket in Paris (if you use Twitter you can follow Richard via @JRichardKelly – and while you’re at it, follow me via @m365d!). He started a few weeks ago by making tantalising references to how excited he was about THE BOX website, which was almost ready for launch. Then it launched and he made the odd reference to it. I pointedly ignored it, preferring to stay in the dark about THE BOX as much as possible in this digital age.

However, recently, Kelly has been plugging the site as if his life depends on it. And, because I have the willpower of a hedge, I clicked on one of those links and entered the site.

I’m happy to report that in the brief look I had, my buzz level for THE BOX grew quite a lot and my ignorance on the details of the plot was only slightly diminished. The site seems to be a sprawling, multi-layered, interactive job (as so many movie sites are nowadays); but as you roll over bits of the screen, and odd symbols appear and disappear and your mouse pointer changes, you can’t help but start clicking. And as each click takes you deeper into the site, you realise that you’ve downloaded a PDF of a short comic (called The Teleporting Man and complete with Sea Monkeys ad on the back cover) or a Human Resource Exploitation Manual – but no clear idea how these wonderful little clues relate to the movie. The HREM talks about tests and contains various diagrams, along with tantalising snatches of information that give you more of an idea of what might happen in THE BOX.

Although on a smaller scale, the site really reminds me of THE MATRIX website waaaay back when I was a student. At the time, I’d never seen a site like it, it was so interactive and yet didn’t give anything away of the movie. It kept talking about red and blue pills and asking “what is the matrix?” – but at no point did it actually tell you what those pills were for or what the matrix was about. Consequently, THE MATRIX became an absolute must see film if only to find out what the hell we’d been looking at for weeks. Of course, THE MATRIX completely changed my ideas of special effects and, to a lesser extent, sci-fi in general.

I’m not suggesting that THE BOX is going to be revolutionary in the same way, nor am I as excited about it – but everything I’ve seen about it so far has served to pique my interest in a way that hasn’t happened since 1999. I’m expecting a solid thriller and hopefully, THE BOX will deliver on it’s buildup.

You can get lost in the site at www.thebox-movie.com and THE BOX is released on 4 December. I’ll be there on opening night.