Choose or Die
Despite being on the cusp of something really good, this latest Netflix Original sadly ends up being more forgettable than entertaining.
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Choose or Die is the type of film that is hard to notice nowadays. The latest horror film from Netflix feels like it would've been a perfect contender at the height of the video rental era. It exudes the type of energy that would've piqued someone's interest while scanning the back of a VHS/DVD at a Blockbuster, wondering if it'll be a worthy escape for a Friday night. With a Ringu/The Ring-esque premise (as well as the film being branded as a Netflix Original Film), Choose or Die has the potential to be a small horror film that doesn’t fall through the cracks like many do on streaming services, especially with its unique yet oddly familiar premise. That being said though, energy and support cannot help a film when tasked to answer this question: at the end of the day, is the film good?
Choose or Die follows Kayla (Iola Evans), a young coder struggling to make enough money to support herself as well as her grieving mother. While hanging out with her old college friend Isaac (Asa Butterfield), she discovers a computer game from the 80’s called Curs>r: a lost survival horror game that is rumored to still have a cash prize yet to be claimed. Desperate for the cash, Kayla decides to take on Curs>r one random night after work. At first, she believes that the “weird energy” surrounding the game is just her lack of sleep. However, as she progresses through the first level, events take a gruesome turn.
After seeing people in the real world being noticeably controlled by her actions in the game, Kayla believes that the game is dangerous and cursed. Worried that furthering herself in the game could lead to deadly consequences for the people around her, she enlists the help of Isaac in order to not only find out where the game came from but to also possibly discover how to lift the curse. However, as their investigation develops, the game must go on. Will Kayla choose to risk the wellbeing of those around her as the game forces her hand? Or die?
Choose or Die’s characters and story have the same issue: they’re just not developed enough to be truly engaging. The moments involving Kayla dealing with the levels of Curs>r are one of the best parts of the film, showing the creativity of writer-director Toby Meakins and his team as the challenges have a playful, sadistic energy that’s refreshing and squirm-inducing. It’s just a shame that everything else in-between those challenges feels either trite or undercooked, slowing down all of the momentum that each Curs>r level brings. There’s even a tragic backstory for Kayla that not only feels rushed but gets weirdly resolved at an odd point in the film, leaving pretty much the rest of the ensemble to feel basic as their characters are essentially boiled down to one or two facts about them. Having an ensemble feel like fodder isn’t unusual for a horror film but what makes it more apparent in Choose or Die is that it feels like that wasn’t the goal of writers Toby Meakins, Simon Allen, and Matthew James Wilkinson.
The script written by the trio feels like it wants to embrace the silliness of its premise (a cursed, killer video game) while also trying to develop the characters and world enough that the viewer feels connected to them. In execution, the film ends up falling flat on the latter. In terms of embracing the premise, the film certainly goes a route with Curs>r’s origins that is cheeky, creative, and genuinely engaging at times. It just yet again falls flat when the film focuses on how Curs>r is affecting the film’s characters when I personally think most people would ultimately be fine with just hearing more about how Curs>r came into existence. Even if the film was pushing more towards two hours in order to build its world out a bit more, I don’t know if that would ultimately help the film because, at its core, the approach to the story and characters makes the film’s eighty-five minutes feel more than enough for the story being told.
While Choose or Die certainly has the potential to be something really good, the film ends up being a fairly mediocre horror film where even the fun highlights aren’t enough to keep a viewer’s attention in the long run. There’s certainly enough here to keep a horror fan intrigued but for what amount of time depends on that person’s tolerance of middling horror. I’ve certainly seen much worse films in the genre but that won’t be enough for me to recommend Choose or Die without a good amount of caveats attached. While I believe the film gives viewers a glimpse as to what Toby Meakins and his co-writers can bring to future films, Meakins’ feature debut will no doubt get lost in a sea of lesser known, recent horror films currently on Netflix. Regardless of the energy it exuded in the beginning, Choose or Die is the type of horror film that almost immediately fades from a person’s mind as soon as the credits roll.