The Steam Experiment (2009)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Wonderful character development!

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This was a truly wretched excuse for a film, which can be watched only with the assistance of a video game or something to keep your mind off of it. You've heard the premise that Bozo has six people locked in a steam room as hostages. However, it becomes clear that there's no actual connection. You'll never find out IF it happened, let alone why.The reactions of the hostages are idiotic even by survival scenario standards. After seeming years of morons emo-ing themselves and one another, one guy gets the notion to rip out the steam pipe. We chuckle as we await the rapid parboiling of the crew in steam from the ruptured pipe, but alas, it doesn't happen. But as soon as he thinks to use the heavy pipe to try to break out, the other hostages kill him for it. Eventually they get the notion to use the pipe to crack the window, great, but only so that they can drop it out of the room. It only gets worse from there. A five year old child would do better at an escape. It would make a good theater of the absurd except it's just too slow and stupid and there's no very good metaphorical point to be made, except that Americans are too darn dumb to worry about global warming, because they won't live that long except if they're lucky enough to be sold into slavery to wealthy PRC businessmen.The one and only redeeming feature of the film is that some of the actors and bare-breasted actresses are fairly pretty; though the director tried his best to make them look drab, greasy, with truly terrible personalities and generally undesirable. Those of us who delighted in Willow and at least admired in Fake Identity won't be dreaming about the Kilmer from this film.

Val Kilmer stars as a lunatic, having escaped a mental hospital who claims to a newspaper editor that he has trapped six people in a steam room. The film, like Armand Asante's detective, wonder if this is a fictitious claim formed from a delusional mind, or a true event that took place. While Asante questions Kilmer, trying to get answers as to whether or not what he says is true, the film alternates between the interrogation room(..which is actually big and vast, empty and drab)and those trapped, in horror, in the steam room. Kilmer, to his credit, has his character constantly jerking, his eyes often cold and lost, with moments that seem to be spoken in perfect clarity while other times has him spouting scientific psycho-babble about global warning, 2012, and his experiment regarding how humans would react to a crisis with little hope of survival..so we aren't ever sure if he's correct or false, until the final scene which sheds some light on if it was possible there was indeed such an experiment.There are three men, three women "chosen" to participate(..against their will, invited to what they conceive is winning a sweepstakes providing them comfort in a luxurious Grand Hotel on the eve before prepared renovations), and they arrive wearing their personalities on their sleeve..we know the kind of people they represent, little is really established in the means of exposition, except introductions to each other, getting acquainted, and not very long after the group finds that they are trapped in the steam room. Once they discover their peril, hope of escape slowly dwindles. Sufficed to say, tempers flare(..plenty of egos among the group), tensions mount, solitude disintegrating quickly when violence erupts as accusations start building an intense wave of negative emotion until people are attacking each other resulting in various murders and suicides.The group consists of Eric Roberts(..as an ex-football player whose career took a dive after an accident he caused), Megan Brown(..as an ex-actress and lonely heart romantic), Patrick Muldoon(..as a widower who attempts to calm the storm when fireworks ignite), Cordelia Reynolds(..as a neurotic author/poet on the edge of insanity), Eve Mauro(..as a tough-talking, antagonistic waitress whose attitude masks insecurity), and Quinn Duffy(..as a cock-sure, vulgar restaurant owner, or so he says, who considers himself quite the catch, whose claustrophobia explodes into a frightening monster willing to obliterate anybody who might've trapped him in the steam room).The film was a pain for me to watch due to that yellow color scheme that often accompanies the use of a Digital camera, particularly in the steam room. The filmmakers go out of their way to heighten an emotional crescendo escalating from what panic and fear can cause, and the aftermath as bodies start to pile up and everyone loses their minds. There are a lot of different opinions and points-of-view regarding involvement in the experiment, when it occurred, and how it was constructed..you'll have to decide for yourself. Basically, this is another Saw variation, resembling other films including Cube, House of 9, even a latest one I recently watched, The Killing Room..there's a whole genre of movies where humans are trapped, soon attacking each other or needing to escape a crisis developed by a diabolical madman or team of psychos. It's interesting seeing Asante and Kilmer in their game to uncover if he's telling the truth or not.

A guy goes into a newspaper to report he has 6 people he locked away in a steam room which will get above 130degrees an kill them. Its some weird type of experiment cooked-up. The newspaper instead of being interested in the story of the 6-people himself slides it off to his old detective buddy. From their Armnade Assante and Erick Roberts go back in fourth. Poorly written yes, there's no witty dialog the characters are pretty carbon-copy. There's a little "SAW" feeling to it. But then again "CRIMINAL MINDS" already did this with a group of "CHEER-LEADERS". You feel this has been done before, and it has been done before but not as a feature movie, a TV show. In the end I liked it.

The ending is neither confusing or Dr Mabusian - just one that has been used before. I saw it coming when the Psych staff arrived. Notice that at least three of the people at the mental hospital - the woman who comes to get him, the doctor and his wife - are the same people who were supposedly in the steam room. That makes the ending quite clear. Val is having another hallucination. He has used people that he knows from the mental hospital as characters in his Chaos scenario. The 'human chaos' that the doctor refers to is that residing in Kilmer himself. A very stylish film with an excellent cast. Only real problem is that the violence was gratuitous. They could have implied rather than show the more gruesome things.