“…a terrible movie in the best way possible…”

“Fuck You Money” is defined as an amount of money that enables someone to do whatever they want without fear of being broke. That is important for you to know because the movie I watched last night pretty much revolves around the concept. Would You Rather is a film in which a very rich man finds eight strangers who are in dire need of financial assistance and offers them “enough money for them to never have to worry about their debts again”. The way they get this money however, is by competing in a very fucked up game of would you rather (in which you have to decide between one outcome or another) the likes of which have only been matched by The Jigsaw Killer from the SAW franchise. The movie technically revolves around Iris, a woman who has to care for her brother who has cancer, but honestly I ended up not caring about anyone in particular.

I pride myself on being a straight shooter so to speak, so I’m going to be honest with you: this movie is not good. That is probably the nicest way to put it, but just know that I know objectively, this movie is pretty bad. However just because a movie is bad doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the hell out of it, which is exactly what I did with Would You Rather. The SAW franchise is so popular because it practically pioneered the modern genre of “torture porn”. Now of course the movies don’t actually have porn in them, but it is a label that essentially means the films not so much glorify, but show gore in great detail. Many people think it is a feat to just sit through these movies and do so because it earns them bragging rights. Others, myself included, enjoy the outlandish scenarios that land characters in these super elaborate, sometimes Rube Goldberg-esque traps, and how they get out of them (or more likely get murdered by them). That was essentially a long-winded way of me explaining that I am not a serial killer, nor do I exhibit tendencies of one (to my knowledge), I merely enjoy watching these bizarre scenarios that involve people torturing or being tortured (of course, only when they are fictional).

Holy shit, I can already tell that I am going to have to do a lot of clarification in my writing to not end up on some sort of “serial killer” list.

Another thing Would You Rather (and some movies of the sort) have that is interesting to watch is the behaviour of people who have to survive. On a day to day basis most people don’t have to make decisions to harm someone else just to benefit themselves, but this movie takes people and makes them do exactly that. That was a very roundabout way of me saying that this movie was enjoyable (to me), but now I’m going to talk about why I think the movie is pretty bad. First of all you have the story. This is the most barebones story you can have, and it is only there to get these people in the rich dudes house. I’m fine with that because at the end of the day I found the movie enjoyable, but don’t go into this movie expecting a layered story with relatable characters and sharp dialogue. Expect 90 minutes of people getting shocked and stabbed and shot, with a healthy sprinkling of campy dialogue. That brings me to my second point of why the movie isn’t great, and that is the dialogue. Much like the story, the dialogue is only there to move the narrative to the next torture scene. Of course you have the classic lines like “You don’t have to do this”, and “I’ll kick your ass when I get the chance”, but beyond that there are only cries of pain and terror. To go along with the dialogue, the acting wash’t great either. Do I blame the actors? Absolutely not because they are essentially playing the part of “meat bag number 1” for the antagonist to beat on. It’s not like they had the option to read shakespeare and instead opted for campy shit. What honestly surprised me about Would You Rather is the cast of characters they had in the movie. Depending on how many other movies/television shows you watch, there are going to be a lot of familiar faces. To quickly run down the list you have Crabman (from My Name is Earl), Ricky (from Trailer Park Boys), Abernathy Darwin Dunlap (from Accepted) a.k.a Oswald Cobblepot (from Gotham), and Sasha Grey (from… ahem… other movies). Keep in mind that I do know the actors names, but I wanted to make a point that they were all recognizable from their different roles.

Now I will talk about what was good (yes, legitimately good) about Would You Rather. To start, the movie knew what it was trying to be and stuck to that. There is a portion halfway through the movie (that I won’t spoil) that would have derailed the plot and made the movie another generic “thriller”, but that plot line gets wrapped up real fucking quick and then it was beck to the torturing. Never once did the movie pretend to be anything deeper than “a bunch of people sitting around a table getting tortured” and that honesty made me love it even more. I want to add on to that by saying that the ending (even though I kind of called it) continued to take the movie in the direction of “we just don’t give a fuck”. Honestly, the movie was hilarious but I admit that is large-in-part because I have a very dark sense of humour. I hope at least one person will read this and agree with me, unless that person is a legitimate serial killer in which case they can fuck off.

Overall Would You Rather is a terrible movie in the best way possible, and really enjoyable as well.

I give Would You Rather a B