Would You Rather [HD]

Brilliant but flawed
I know this is by no means a perfect movie, but I truly loved it. Jeffrey Combs performance was fantastic and I really liked the story. There were really no surprises, but the casting and the dialog kept the movie interesting for me. The "choices" idea that runs through the movie caused for a lot of tension, but I feel that it could have been exploited a bit more. Most of the gore in this film is what plays in your head, because most of those shots cut-away. I found this very effective and was tense through most of the movie. I do want to say I feel a little guilty in liking this so much because there is a definite cruelty to the violence. Having said that, I felt that it was a compelling, tense, film that managed to entertain. I'm already wishing there was a sequel.

THERE IS A PROCESS INVOLVED
Iris (Brittany Snow) has a brother who needs a bone marrow transplant. The creepy Shepard Lambrick (Jeffrey Combs) offers to pay for it if she wins a game of a sadistic "would you rather," one that we quickly discover is played to the death. 8 people are assembled in a dining room and forced at gun point. Since Iris is the only person we know anything about, everyone but Scooby-Doo can figure this one out.

Amy, played by porn star Sasha Grey, is an aggressive player who immediately plays to win. Shepard has an obnoxious son (Robin Taylor) who insults the players.

There is a fairly decent intensity factor with this film, but it really doesn't stimulate the grey matter. The whole set up is rather inane. If you like the "ten little Indians" style movies with slasher elements, this one is satisfactory as long as you keep your expectations low. Perhaps 5 stars on a Red Box rental scale.

If you liked this film you might also like "Truth or Die" which I...

An Amusing Exercise In Sadism But, Ultimately, Not Quite Imaginative Enough
There will be some people who instantly dismiss the low budget shocker "Would You Rather" based on its rather unpleasant conceit. Indeed, the movie was brutalized by most mainstream critics upon its release. It currently averages a dismal 20 out of 100 possible points on the review aggregate site Metacritic. Despite this fact, I was never deterred by its ghoulish premise. I embraced it and it was a major selling point! I'm not squeamish, I welcome an experience that will shock and disturb me. Truthfully, I didn't hate "Would You Rather." I did, however, feel that it fell far short of its potential. At 2 1/2 stars, I'm giving credit to one of the B-movie greats. Jeffrey Combs (always the Re-Animator in my heart) gives an unexpected and offbeat performance as a bored millionaire that uses real people in his sadistic entertainment. He made me laugh on occasion and his interactions with his staff and his son are quite funny (although to be fair, maybe some of these sequences are...

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