Das Experiment
Films that explore the dark side of human nature are always disturbing. Their villains are not some generic monsters of fantasy, but the you and me we see in the mirror everyday. With a story that's inspired by true events (the important elements of it remaining unchanged), it makes for a far more chilling story.
The Experiment is based on Mario Giordano's novel, Black Box, which was further based on Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment of 1971. The film examines a very traditional question often asked when dealing with human nature - what happens when you give power to people without? While contained within a microcosm of society, the people with power are gradually reduced to their Alpha Male primal selves.
If the characters from Lord of the Flies are rewritten into adults, this would be that movie. I was glued to the edge of my seat as the story escalates into a bigger train-wreck with each day that passed in the simulated prison. What's eerie and what separates this movie from something fantastical like Lord of the Flies is that similar institutions like this simulated prison do exist in real life, albeit under more controlled condition. The situation suggested by the movie, the abuse of power, is not something unimaginable in real life, and it happens very often even today. To see it in such extremity and such realism at the same time would, naturally, leave the audiences incredibly uncomfortable.
On a personal note, such abuse of power is one reason why I don't trust the military. Having enlisted myself in conscription before (by law), I have suffered the abuse and I can tell you it can be terrifying to be subjected under power.
Being an adaptation of a fictionalized version of true events, there are of course some contrivances that dampen the film's realism. For example, the love interest, whose role in the story symbolizes destiny and fate, or as the protagonist puts it, how "everything happens for a reason". It's kinda cheesy, particularly with the addition of the romantic ending, but it doesn't take much away from the suspense of the movie.
Another minor imperfection is the edgy factor. Without even researching the original Stanford experiment, I could tell which of the events in the movie are made up. There is rape in this movie, and not the male-on-male kind. For a movie that plays something as edgy as Linkin Park at the beginning and the end, this is actually kinda tasteless, as it feels like the filmmakers were going for a cheap shock factor rather than adding anything meaningful.
In the end, however, the movie serves as a fantastic thriller for those looking to be disturbed.