Friday, 29 May 2009

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Fermat's Room

Imagine what horror fest Saw would be like if the victims all had maths degrees

Fermat's Room makes solving a puzzle a matter of life or death

Maths tests give lots of us nightmares but at least the penalty for failure isn't being crushed to death.

That's the potential fate of the four victims in this ingenious Spanish thriller.

They're brilliant mathematicians invited to an isolated house to solve the greatest enigma ever.

Once inside a locked room they're challenged to solve what seems like a simple puzzle in a minute.

When they fail, they discover that the walls start to move, and the room begins to shrink around them.

The only way out is to solve a series of increasingly fiendish problems.

It's bound to get an American remake but this stylish original is worth the effort.

And it made me wish I'd paid more attention at school.

Fermat's Room is out now.