Writer(s): Steffen Schlachtenhaufen
Starring: Brittany Snow, Jeffrey Combs, Sasha Grey, and June Squibb
The only reason I was interested in seeing this is because
we used to play a similar game at work.
Our point was to be as graphic and disturbing as possible, which I figured
was the entire point of the game, and so with that in mind, I figured that
would basically be the whole point of this movie. It kind of is. But what I didn’t expect from a film based
entirely around cold, calculating violence, was one so predictable and
formulaic; going in you already know there can only be one survivor: (SPOILER
ALERT) Could it be the woman who is billed first in the credits, and the only
one whose backstory is fleshed out in the beginning? (END SPOILER)
Even beyond that, the final twist is foreshadowed long
before it actually happens, and both my wife and I called it well before it was
revealed. In a good movie (and I have
one in mind to use as an example, but don’t want to reveal it for fear of
giving away too much) such a twist can have a profound, draining effect on the
viewer; in a movie like Would You Rather, it just feels like the filmmakers
were throwing around cynical ideas, and hoping one of them would stick.
But in order for something to resonate with the viewer, there
needs to be at least one prerequisite:
You must have characters that the audience can cheer for. The bland writing does nothing to further
that agenda. Sure, we have characters
(well, mainly one) that we’re supposed to cheer for, and they certainly
try their darndest to follow every little detail in the “How to Create a Likable Character” guidebook, but they only succeed in creating a
sugar-coated, one-dimensional stereotype, rather than a fully fleshed-out
character. She’s plain-looking; not so
gorgeous that women will get jealous of her, but not so ugly that people will
laugh at her, either. She has a heart of
gold, which we can tell from the way she holds the door open for a lady in a
wheelchair. And she’s such a great
person that she takes care of her sick brother, despite the financial and
emotional strain it takes on her.
There’s not really a problem with any of this stuff, except that they
cram it all into the only ten minute block they allow for character
development. We get it, she’s such a
perfect little angel who does nothing wrong, so we’re supposed to cheer for
her.
I didn’t.
That girl is Iris (Brittany Snow), and just a few minutes
into the movie, she gets an invitation from a rich man, Shepard Lambrick
(Jeffrey Combs), to join him for a dinner party. He knows that she is taking care of her
brother, and is desperate for money, so he explains that she will be playing a
game, and if she wins, he will take care of her, and her brother, for the rest
of their lives. Her own doctor, who was
a previous winner, pushes her into accepting, which she eventually does.
We already know where this is headed, and so she’s joined by a cast of characters ranging from terribly unlikable (Amy, loosely played by Sasha Grey), to annoying and unlikable (old paralyzed Linda), and slight variations, or combinations, of each. In the only genuinely shocking thing about the movie, John Heard is in it—no doubt to get people to say “Oh wow, John Heard is in it!”—but he knows how to game the system; he’s the first one killed, and probably the one that was the most handsomely paid. I guess that’s a perk of having a 40 year career in Hollywood.
Not surprisingly, things start of relatively tame:
Contestants are given the choice of either shocking themselves, or shocking
another contestant, then, also not surprisingly, gradually get worse from
there. It all develops exactly the way
you think it will; there are a couple attempts at curveballs for the viewer,
but they’re as sloppy as a fast food burger, and won’t fool you even for a
minute.
The performances are wildly uneven, with Jeffrey Combs good,
if not maybe a little overboard, as the sadistic party host, while former
pornstar Sasha Grey is embarrassingly bad as Amy. I like my women trashy, so I thought her
“mystery woman” persona was pretty hot, in a sleazy kind of way. But every time she opens her mouth…well, you
can see where the whole “acting in porn” jokes come from. They do kind of combat it by not giving her
many lines, instead letting her personality develop by mostly showing her
reactions to the various events, but when she does say something, it’s nothing
short of cringe-inducing. The rest of
the cast, save for ol’ paralyzed Linda (who reminded me a lot of Charlie’s mom
in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, though that character is played for laughs), give at
least passable performances; Brittany Snow, in the lead as Iris, is no better
or worse than your average horror movie heroine, screaming and crying a lot,
without being given much else to do.
Whether or not you will like this depends on your
predisposition to bland, lifeless horror movies. There are actually a few people I know who
don’t mind clichéd predictability in their films; this kind of person might
find something to like here. Those that
want a little kick with their horror, should definitely look somewhere else.
RECAP: Predictable, with the typical gradual increase in
horror, and an overreliance on shock attempts, Would You Rather takes an
interesting premise, and puts it through the “Hollywood Formula Machine”; the
occasional moments where it attempts to counter the banalities of the horror
genre are clumsy, and rather transparent.
In other words, it’s a shocker, only without the shocks. Sasha Grey, as Amy, is also notably bad,
though the other performances are mostly passable. Speaking of “pass”, take one on this.
RATING: 3/10
TRAILER
No comments:
Post a Comment