Choose or Die (film): Just to impractical to be entertaining

This film was recently featured on my homepage on Netflix and the concept behind it seemed interesting enough for me to give it a shot. I ended up making it all the way through this film whilst only skipping a bit of it but overall I would say that this is too magical to remain entertaining.

When I say "magical" I mean that unlike the films that it is emulating like the Saw series of films, the people involved cannot escape what it haunting them and rather than being captured by some sort of trap that they have to figure out they are given a series of puzzles that appear at a certain time of day out of nowhere. The puzzles can magically take control of other people and make random enemies of sorts appear out of thin air.

While they do some sort of explaining as to how this is possible, it all is just too impossible for me to really take the film seriously or to do anything other than groan whenever a new scenario appears.

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Don't get me wrong: I'm all for magic and the impossible to happen in films but when it is something that the person in the film cannot possibly escape it annoys me. This is the same problem I had with the recent remakes of Stephen King's IT as well. Pennywise can find the kids anywhere that they go and it just kind of begs the question of "if it is the baddy's objective to kill the people they are tormenting, why not just go ahead and do it? What's with the leadup?"

I also don't like it when, unlike in the Saw films, the puzzles that the people are given don't have a solution that works out in their favor. I know it was very unlikely that the people in Saw were going to escape unharmed, but at least there was SOME chance. In this film the people involved are screwed.

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The film begins with two friends who are passionate about programming, but kind of short on money, getting ahold of an old-school video game that boasts a prize of $125,000 to anyone that completes it. They feel that since they can read the coding of the game, that they will be able to do this easily. Instead, this game unleashes some sort of inescapable curse that will follow them no matter where they go and they have no choice of running away.

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The game is unironically called "Curser," which I found to be particularly lame.

The puzzles that they are faced with can find them no matter where they hide and the people involved will at times be innocent bystanders who just happen to be near them when the specified time happens. The evil force can take control of anyone around them and make them do whatever appears on the keyboard including kill themselves in a horrible fashion. The users have no choice but to choose an outcome because just like the title of the movie suggests, they have to "choose or die."

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The scene where a waitress must eat broken glass that she has smashed on the floor is gruesome but also completely impractical that this 1980's videogame can take control of the minds of people who aren't even involved in it. Like I said, this is explained at some point in the movie but when it is explained to you it still doesn't make sense.

The suspense isn't really good so much as it is guaranteed and much like Saw it isn't a question of whether or not a gore-fest scene is coming up, it is a question of how they are going to do it.

Should I watch it?

For gore fans, you might find this mildly entertaining but I think that most people are going to end up feeling like I did while watching it. I don't like the fact that there is no amount of good choices that the unintentional players can possibly make to avoid killing and the game is rigged. There are no right decisions and the fact that various things can simply manifest out of nowhere gets old pretty fast.

That being said, if you can ignore the weak storyline then there are some decent visuals and reasonable acting in this thing. I think that if you have your remote in hand you can skip most of the movie and get to the good parts in a hurry to see the features of this movie. The dialogue between the various "events" is tiresome and irrelevant seeing as how you quickly realize that there is nothing that the people can do to escape what has been unleashed on them.

It has its moments, but for the most part I think people are going to find this film "meh" at best. I think that most people who are not huge fans of gore could skip this one and not be missing anything.