This has been on my Netflix queue forever so since I was getting kind of bored from watching back-to-back hipster indie flicks, I decided to take a break. Initially, it looked like it would be average at best, and a pretentious wannabe Saw flick at the worst. And to be fair, the Saw vibe is definitely felt, but this movie also offers a couple of interesting elements as well. So allow me to break it down:
The protagonist is a young woman named Iris (Brittany Snow), who spends most of her time caring for her terminally ill younger brother. After his doctor introduces her to a philantropist named Shepard Lambrick, he informs her that if she wins a game at his upcoming dinner party, he will secure her brother the proper donor to save his life. She accepts, and soon discovers that other individuals at the dinner party also want a piece of the pie. Lambrick introduces the game as being "would you rather", but with a slight catch: each round involves some type of physical and mental torture, with the game becoming more dangerous with each round. As the guests begin to fear for their lives, they realize that something truly sadistic and sinister is lurking behind Lambrick's promise of charity.
Now, upon seeing the trailer, I did find this to be an interesting concept for a horror film. A lot of times, certain horror movies fail because they focus way too much on cramming in a bunch of plot points and random scares without actually allowing the story to breathe. Here, the story elements are given enough room so that it all flows at a fairly steady pace and nothing has to stop completely so that the audience members are given a chance to reorient themselves. And I feel like this is one of the film's biggest strengths. I thought that the tension was extremely well-executed, and especially considering the type of story being told, it is very easy to completely fuck this element up if you don't balance it correctly. They expanded on the moments that needed to be built up, and they condensed the moments that would otherwise slow down the film. Even though it only had a runtime of slightly less than 90 minutes, I still felt that it was long enough to be exciting and not horribly drawn-out.
With regards to the performances of the actors, I thought that everyone did a fairly decent job even if it was far from being perfect. Like, okay, obviously Iris has the most character because she's the protagonist, so by comparison the rest of the side characters were kind of one-dimensional. But for the sake of this concept, in the end it all kind of worked. I was surprised and delighted to see June Squib, as I loved her in Nebraska, and it was nice to watch her in a performance that was a little different from the one she happened to play in that movie. I will also note that Robb Wells appears in this film, who plays Ricky in Trailer Park Boys, but unfortunately for me it was hard to not see him as Ricky the entire time because his character here was really just a carbon copy of his performance on the show. I'm not saying that his performance was necessarily good or bad, just that it wasn't all that different from what I've seen him do before.
I will admit that there were a couple of issues with this film, mainly with the villain(s). I get that the actors were trying to be intentionally over-the-top and gimmicky, but at the same time, it didn't feel that believable in certain places. There were also parts of the villain's story arc that I felt needed a lot more exposition. For instance, the film takes the time to have this whole exchange between him and his son, and their dialogue has a lot of hints to certain backstory and offscreen elements, but it isn't really brought up again. Well, except for this one part where Iris is almost raped by the son, and Shepard Lambrick apologizes to her and mentions the death of his wife, though it ends up going nowhere and doesn't add anything to his character or his son's. But by far the thing that troubled me most was the ending (spoiler alert). I thought that it was building up nicely when Iris came home and showered, but then they decided to have her find her brother's dead body after he committed suicide, and the film just ends. Not to mention the completely inappropriate credits song that began playing as the camera pulled up! Note to other filmmakers: when you want the audience to feel horrified or sad, incorporating an upbeat alternative rock song is going to completely derail the entire tone of your film. And to be fair, it almost ruined the entire film for me. While I did think about the director's possible intention and wondered if it was supposed to symbolize self-sacrifice for the ones you love (thereby bringing the protagonist's central conflict to the forefront and reversing it against her), but if so, it certainly could've been done in a way that didn't feel so damned rushed or half-assed.
Overall, the film was adept at managing its time and it succeeded in keeping my attention. It had a lot of issues, but since they are relatively minor, they probably won't seriously impede its entertainment value.Overall Rating: 6.5/10
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