Das Experiment (2001)

[woot!]

I don't know if this movie has allready been released or not in the US (probably though , as it won a price , but it just made it to the movie theaters last week in France. It is a german movie from 2001, based on the Stanford Prison Experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/).

A group of 20 volunteers (paid like 3000$ ), divided into 8 guardians and 12 prisoners, have to live for 14 days into a fake prison build in the basement of an university. They are beeing filmed and observed 24 / 7 by scientists who study social behaviour and psychology. Of course, things start to turn bad pretty fast ...

Pretty opressing / disturbing and quite violent (moral and psychological violence mainly), it could almost be considered as a documentary movie, as only the very end changes from what happened in reality. A bit in line with movies like Funny Games (talking about strong / raw violence, and disturbing atmosphere). Realy worth a look.

[Kaylum]

i havent seen it, but it sounds interesing.
IMDB ( http://us.imdb.com/Title?0250258 ) shows an english title:

Also Known As:

Experiment, The (2002) (International: English title)

amazon lists "the experiment" available on DVD july 1, 2003:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...052300-0348145

[Dokomo]

Actually I think I saw something like this on the History Channel or something a year or so back. It was a really good idea, but RL factors kept butting in, and some of the prisoners couldn't handle the fact that they were even in a mock prison and went nuts in a few days. The survivors, immediately did what hard core prisoners would do and plotted an escape. Predictably it fails and we begin the guards downward spiral of punishment. In the end the whole thing has to be stopped short because some of these guys are starting to be like concentration camp prisoners. Very interesting stuff overall.