Would You Rather (2012) Movie Review
Written By: RY
Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff
Film Information
Director: David Guy Levy
Writer: Steffen Schlachtenhaufen
Producer(s): David Guy Levy, Zak Kilberg, and Maura Anderson
Date Released: October 14, 2012
Cast:
Brittany Snow as Iris
Jeffrey Combs as Shepard Lambrick
Jonny Coyne as Bevans
Lawrence Gillard Jr as Dr. Barden
Enver Gjokaj as Lucas
Sasha Grey as Amy
John Heard as Conway
Charlie Hofheimer as Travis
Rating = 2/5 Graves
***May contain some spoilers***
Synopsis
Iris lives with her brother, Raleigh, who has leukemia. They are desperate to find Raleigh a donor in the face of financial problems. One day, Raleigh’s oncologist, Dr. Barden introduced Iris to a philanthropist, Shepard Lambrick. The rich philanthropist offers Iris to pay all her brother’s necessary treatment and even find him a donor. In return, she must win the game at his dinner party. Since Iris is desperate, she decided to go for it without thinking what is in store for her.
Gore Factor
Would You Rather (2012) is a psychological horror-thriller movie. Just by looking at the trailer, you will know that there will be so much blood in the film. It revolves around the game “Would You Rather”. The difference is that the consequences are life-threatening. For example, one has to choose whether they should stab their seatmate or whip the other player.
The intensity of the consequences becomes high as the game goes on. Some players were shot, some players were stabbed, and one was whipped for who knows how many times. Most of the jump scares come from the gunshots. One example would be when Dr. Barden was shot directly in the head by Bevans.
Since the movie was focused on torture, there were certainly a lot of gore scenes. You will be seeing blood come out of their thighs, backs, and other parts of the body. There was one scene when the player was asked to wrap his hand with an explosive. Another scene to note is when the player was asked to remove his eye, but the camera was focused on someone else when the player was doing the dare.
The Grave Review
In terms of the story itself, Would You Rather (2012) failed in explaining why Shepard is doing all of it. Why is he interested in torturing other people? Other than that, the film did not disappoint in terms of its effects, music, and even cinematography.
You can feel the emotions of each character, especially the players of the game. If you are not a fan of watching torture, then you will find yourself covering your eyes most of the time. There were a lot of disturbing scenes like when the player’s hand exploded. There were no filters, except for the scene when the player removes his eye. The film also focused on the importance of making decisions. Would you rather hurt yourself or another person? Would you save yourself or others?
Character development is mainly focused on Iris. Throughout the film, she cares about the other players but during the final round, she decided to kill the player in front of her even when she has the option for both of them to leave. In the end, the movie proved that humans are selfish.
Overall, Would You Rather is a pretty simple movie. This film is similar to many of the films that tried to use the popularity of the Saw series to gain success, except for the fact that this one is actually good. There really is nothing overly original within the movie but it doesn’t have that cliched feel. Jeffrey Combs really sticks out as the main antagonist in the film. His nonchalant attitude really adds something different to similar roles of sadistic villains. The rest of the cast is not really asked to do much, but they definitely do enough with what was required of them.
The movie’s final scene is a pretty awful and unnecessary attempt to be clever with a “surprise ending.” The ending is somewhat predictable given the premise of the story.
Because of the foregoing reasons, Grave Reviews gives Would You Rather (2012) two graves out of five graves.
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