The Horror Show
Would You Rather
by David Guy Levy
The idea of people being led into a sadistic game of will has been around for quite some time now. H.P. Lovecraft wrote on such a theme years ago. The Saw franchise put the concept on the map in a modern sense and since then, roughly eight billion rehashings of the concept of people having to do awful things to one another and themselves have been brought into the world.
The latest bland, cheap retreat of a once-proud horror scenario comes in the form of the film Would You Rather. The story centers on Iris (Brittany Snow), a girl looking for money due to her brother's terminal illness. A doctor (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.) introduces Iris to a billionaire (Jeffrey Combs) who offers her an exclusive entry into a contest. If she wins, all of her brother's needs will be met.
Iris takes his offer and finds herself at a mansion with a group of others. After some light mingling they are informed that they are all to take part in a game of “would you rather” in which people are given an option between two scenarios, neither of which are things they consider desirable. The host has the vegetarian Iris eat some meat and a recovering alcoholic take a drink to break the ice. Things don't get any more fun from there, for the players or the viewer. For the players because they all enter into a world of pain, and for the viewers because it's all just so humdrum.
The concept would work great for an all-out depravity fest. If a creative mind were to go wild with the idea, there could be a lot of fun to be had and the movie could really be something special. Instead, it's more like someone who's just heard of horror films trying to make one. The characters are boringly clichéd, a combination of the decent to the awful for no reason. None of the characters are particularly likable, but mainly because none of them have been given the smallest amount of personality above basic archetype. It's a bad tell when the best thing I can say about a film is that the guy who played Crabman in My Name is Earl and Ricky from Trailer Park Boys are inexplicably in it. I don't mean that sarcastically, I love those guys. But when that's the only plus of a horror film, said film is in a lot of danger.
Are the tasks that the characters have to do to themselves and each other awful? Technically, sure. I wouldn't want to almost drown or get stabbed with an icepick. But it's not all that creative either, and when you're trying to shock someone watching comfortably from home, someone who is in now real danger, you have to step it up a notch. Or in this movie's case, five or six notches.
The acting isn't bad. That is one thing I will say about the film. None of it is mind-blowing and some of the characters are asinine in conception, but none of the actors do a terrible job. Jeffrey Combs does a competent job as the main villain, suffering only from the dull material he is given to work with. The film takes no chances and plays out in an ordinary fashion. Personally, I think the film would have better served if Iris wound up getting killed in the first twenty minutes (that statement says nothing about her actual fate). If the film had pulled a Psycho and taken the main character out of the equation right off the bat, followed by the plot dissolving into chaos, I would have been so on board. But instead, Iris is the typical damsel in distress and the movie ventures into predictable waters.
The movie follows the beats of a film but puts no effort into exploring anything. The doctor character, at one point, has reservations telling the psychotic billionaire that he disagrees with Iris's involvement. Why? I have no idea. It is never mentioned and if the writer doesn't care enough to do so, I don't care enough to give the movie itself that much thought. Characters grow angry with each other randomly and take stances that make zero sense.
All in all I wouldn't call the film a flat-out embarrassment by any means. People who call I Know What You Did Last Summer a quality slasher franchise or think that anything that goes to mainstream theaters is as nasty as films can get might be entertained by it. But I can't see any true horror fan digging it all that much. I'm not being elitist and saying that if you like it, or even love it, that you aren't a true fan of the genre. I just don't understand. So would I rather recommend this film or not? I'll recommend the latter and suggest you pass it right over.
P.J. Griffin, HMS
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