There are
elements from two extremely specific sub-genres of horror which are borrowed
from very blatantly to create Would You
Rather. Separate these two from each other and each would be easy to
separate this film from a mass of others alike, but the originality comes from
the way the genres are blended together here. Would You Rather contain
countless familiar elements which could be found in many other films, but the
ingredients have never previously been combined together as they have been in Would You Rather.
The torture porn
captivity films are blended with the thrillers about games of life or death,
played for financial gain. Essentially, Would You Rather takes the premise of 13 Tzameti (or the English-language
remake, 13) and replaces the game of
Russian roulette with far more creative acts of physical and psychological
torture. A despicable philanthropist (Jeffrey Combs) invites a group of
desperate individuals into his home for the chance to win a large sum of money
to take all of their problems away. The one detail left out to the participants
is the height of the stakes for those who lose the game.
Once the game
begins, each of the participants is forced to stay and compete, with death as
the only escape other than winning. Iris (Brittany Snow) is our obvious
protagonist, attempting to win for her sick brother and making sacrificial
choices during the game in order to avoid hurting others. Her behavior is
overwhelmingly saccharine for much of the film, and though this is for a
purpose in the storyline, some of the over-acting makes it somewhat difficult
to root for Iris to win. Perhaps it was miscasting, because putting the
semi-star of countless terrible teen films in a horror film just made me long
for her demise. On the other hand, casting porn star Sasha Grey as one of the
more despicable participants in the game may have been a bit on-the-nose.
Clever premise
aside, there are some harrowing sequences of creative torture porn. The gore is
not on the level of a Saw film, using
a simpler approach. There are no elaborate contraptions, as the most devious
thing is the greedy nature of humans which allows them to chop each other down
for the chance at monetary bliss. Would
You Rather also co-stars Lawrence Gilliard Jr. (“Army Wives”), Eddie
Steeples (“My Name is Earl”), and Charlie Hofheimer (“Mad Men”) The Blu-ray
includes a commentary track with director David Guy Levy and writer Steffen
Schlachtenhaufen. There is also a poster gallery and trailer for the film.
Entertainment Value:
7/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 6/10
Historical
Significance: 5/10
Disc Features: 6/10
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