Choose or Die, 2022.
Directed by Toby Meakins.
Starring Asa Butterfield, Iola Evans, Eddie Marsan, Robert Englund, Kate Fleetwood, Ryan Gage, Angela Griffin, and Joe Bolland.
SYNOPSIS:
After firing up a lost 80s survival horror game, a young coder unleashes a hidden curse that tears reality apart, forcing her to make terrifying decisions and face deadly consequences.
The opening scene of Choose or Die positions itself to be one of those worthwhile videogame movies based more on the entertainment medium itself rather than any specific IP. It sees Eddie Marsan’s collector of 80s memorabilia (there is a poster of A Nightmare on Elm Street on the wall of his man cave, which is amusing because while the cast list does involve the embodiment of the iconic slasher Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund only has a quick but impressionable voiceover role) unpacking and firing up a forgotten CYOA (choose your adventure) game. This means that text scrolls across the outdated PC monitor ending with a fork in the road prompt to select from.
The game, titled Curs>r, turns eerie and unsettling as the presented choices are directly tied to reality. The prompts start relatively harmless but soon transition into a deadly game of deciding what should happen; a son losing his sailor mouth tongue or a wife losing her ears. There is also a suspenseful urgency considering if it takes too long to make a choice, the game will find a way to punish the player physically.
If Choose or Die were a short, similar to Toby Meakins’ other works (who is making his directorial debut here, conjuring up and writing a story alongside Simon Allen and Matthew James Wilkinson), it would be an effective winner. Unfortunately, following that prologue, this team of filmmakers has to set up an actual story involving new characters that too often lets self-serious drama that’s poorly contextualized with cartoonish characters standing in for human behavior, despite striving for emotional heights regarding grief, parental estrangement, and bafflingly, hero culture (in one of the most confounding attempts at social commentary seen in a horror movie as of late) stand in the way.
Strapped for cash following dropping out of college, Kayla (Iola Evans) comes across the game and decides to play (unbeknownst that it is cursed) as there is an unclaimed short-term solution cash prize. Kayla also has to be the breadwinner, as ever since her brother died in a tragic swimming pool drowning incident, her mother has been a depressed wreck addicted to pills pushed on her by the apartment’s tenant (Ryan Gage), who either is a boyfriend or angling to be one. It’s not entirely clear what their relationship is, and even if it is, it’s poorly handled and irrelevant to the larger story until it suddenly becomes convenient. It also doesn’t help that the characters are given extreme personalities with no nuance; mom is a disheveled, couch-ridden mess and her friend is confrontational to Kayla in outlandishly verbally aggressive ways.
Later that night, Kayla has her first experience with Curs>r, which leaves one waitress dead via suicide right in front of her eyes. For reasons I can’t quite understand that is never elaborated on, Kayla also seems to wake up from the scene of the crime hours after whatever horrible event takes place, as issues immediately transported her with no recollection of the time in between. Regardless, it’s made known that apparently, the police questioned her, and that was the end of it.
Still, Kayla is in intense trouble. So she decides to go to her trusted coder friend Isaac (Asa Butterfield), an ambitious video game developer creating not just old-school throwback games using today’s technology but actual antiquated games seemingly using past tools. Or maybe the world of Choose or Die exists in an alternate reality where gaming technology never went beyond the SNES. The point is that there is so much confusion here, even when it comes to simply establishing a moment in time inside a world that makes sense. Why not just set the movie during the 80s?
The good news is that when Choose or Die routinely gets to the demented game itself; it typically thrills with clever ideas and vicious outcomes, so no round feels the same. There is a climactic boss battle that makes use of some wacky logic that feels like a puzzle battle that Hideo Kojima would come up with (the characters do not have to switch controller ports from slot 1 to 2, but there is something unique about it I will let you discover for yourself). Again, the film is also simply too overstuffed and fails at nearly every story beat it is going for to thoroughly recommend, and that’s without getting into the sequel-baiting involving an evil corporation. Still, there are worse choices viewers can make.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
