‘Would You Rather’ Review

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Would You Rather is a slightly clever, yet not fully realized spin on the torture horror films that we saw such an abundance of a few years ago. It takes the classic hypothetical game of would you rather and makes it literal, with painful and devastating results. Unfortunately, the film itself is slightly painful to watch and leaves much to be desired.

Brittany Snow plays Iris, a young woman who is taking care of her younger brother who has cancer.  Iris needs money desperately in order to pay for the mounting medical bills and also needs to find a bone marrow donor for her brother.  At her most dire moment a wealthy man (Jeffrey Combs) gives her an opportunity to attend a dinner party and play a game in order to get the money and the donor. She quickly realizes however, that she might have gotten in over her head as the game begins and people start dying. 

Nearly the entire film is comprised of the game, with little to no back-story told on each of the characters.  The guests seem to be an eclectic bunch ranging from an old woman in a wheel chair, to the guy that played Darnell in My Name is Earl, to one of the Trailer Park Boys, and of course we can’t forget Sasha Grey. These actors all gave sub-par performances for the most part and the viewer gains zero attachment to any of them.

But with a film like this, most people aren’t going to watch it for the performances or character development.  They want to see people die in inventive and horrific ways and ask each other “What would you do?” In that regard this film is a moderate success.  The game itself is clever and it’s actually a surprise that a film like this hasn’t been made before.

The rules of the game are simple.  The player is given two options of things to do and they must pick one of them.  It starts off simply enough with two of the guests connected to a makeshift shock therapy machine.  The player has two buttons in front of them and can choose to shock himself or herself, or shock the other person.  As the game progresses the choices become more difficult and brutal.

The violence, while it is plentiful, is not a complete gorefest like Saw or Hostel. The camera has no problem quickly cutting away from the truly awful bits, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The situation these people are in is the focus and the film is designed to be constantly making you question what you would do in their position.

Unfortunately, the game itself is the only thing even slightly interesting about this movie.  The characters are stupid, the setting is just a dinner table, and the ending is abrupt and unsatisfying.  If there was a message to be had from the ending, the filmmakers didn’t give it enough time to sink in.

There’s also something of a side plot involving the winner from a previous year returning and trying to save the guests but it’s completely pointless and adds nothing to the story.  When you think about the plot for any length of time what so ever there are so many questions that come up, you’ll instantly realize this was kind of a waste of time.

In games of “Would you rather” there’s rarely an easy or correct answer.  When asking yourself if you would rather watch this movie or literally do anything else, the answer to that is both easy and correct. Don’t bother.