The Steam Experiment

2009 "When he turns up the heat ... they will turn on each other."
3.9| 1h30m| R| en| More Info
Released: 01 May 2009 Released
Producted By: West Bay One
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A deranged scientist locks 6 people in a steam room and threatens to turn up the heat if the local paper doesn't publish his story about global warming.

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Reviews

brchthethird This is an ineptly made "film" with a nonsensical plot and thinly sketched characters. Val Kilmer plays a deranged scientist who seems to think that the effects of global warming are imminent, and so locks six people in a steam room to prove his point while he also uses them as a bargaining chip to get his "story" published. If that all sounds wacko, it's because it is. Nothing about this makes sense. Val Kilmer is basically portraying a stereotypical conspiracy nut job, but he doesn't even do it that well. And that filmmakers decided to drag global warming into this is even more stupid because it denigrates a serious scientific effort by putting it in the same category with people who believe(d) the world would end in 2012 (and schizophrenic madmen). Aside from him, none of the characters are really given any back story, or any reason to care about them. Armand Assante (as an off-duty cop) does a serviceable job with the material given him and kind of acts as the surrogate for the audience, in a way. He calls out Val Kilmer's character for what he is, and says what everybody in the audience must be thinking about him. Still, it looked like he was sleepwalking through the entire thing. Eric Roberts was the only other actor in this piece of trash that I recognized, but he's given even less to do as one of the six people trapped in a steam room (or are they?). Here is where the writing really lacked. There was no character development to give the audience any reason to care about them, aside from a couple sentences from each stating who they were, where they were from and what they liked/disliked. That's it. After that, it was just them hanging around and slowly going crazy after they find out they can't get out. I just have to say that the film-making here was rather shoddy. The editing was really weird, especially in the steam room scenes. You would have one character speaking, but then it would fade to another while that character was still talking, and replay bits of dialogue. Also, the steam room scenes occur in between scenes of Val Kilmer and Armand Assante and are shown in such a way that it appears that Val Kilmer is either telepathic/omnipotent or he's describing something that already happened, which would directly contradict what he said in the beginning of the movie. Considering that his character is crazy, I guess I could just let it slide but honestly, it's just poor writing, through and through. Val Kilmer's character is basically a Jigsaw wannabe, but only in his head. Even with the mental state of the lead character in question, the appearance of two people (coincidentally, the last two survivors from the steam room) still makes no sense in the context of the story and raises more questions than it answers. Overall, this is a frustratingly bad movie with poor filmic qualities, horrible acting and a story that's too thin and makes no sense. I look forward to never seeing this again.
thyholymajesty The above review is so stupid that I feel compelled to write one, through a basic sense of justice. This is not a great film. It's not a good film, in the sense that you'd never own it. But it's worth a watch - I was interested from the opening to the end - boring patches, yes, but never boring in the way that kills the movie. They were short as patches go, the flick recovered.In short, if there's something you like doing, do it. But there's often nothing - and this flick is worth your time then :)And Val - Val is awesome. Val is good movie in this OK movie. He should lose some weight - the parts would come.
arcturus9 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.
Jonathan Price Another clanger from Val Kilmer. I watch many movies and this was one of the most disjointed I've seen for a long time. Kilmer plays some kind of nut-case, but it's never really clear what he wants (even the maddest of people could be more lucid), Armand Assante mumbled his way through the movie so even if he had something interesting to say, you couldn't understand it and the scenes in the steam room were muddled and not at all suspenseful. Kilmer stared bleakly, twitched and fidgeted to show how mad he was, but it came across as just a parody. It was such a mess that at the end of the movie you couldn't figure out who was the real psycho and who was the victim. At what little climax there was, you were left feeling let down and unmoved. Definitely not worth watching unless you are desperate.