Review of Would You Rather (2013) by Rachel F — 12 Dec 2017

I Would Rather Watch Anything Beside This (Spoilers).

Would you kill a stranger for a chance to win all the money that you can imagine? This movie takes a childhood getting-to-know-you game and twists it into a game that pushes its contestants to the brink of life or even over the edge.

Would You Rather focuses on a woman, Iris (Brittany Snow), who is now caring for herself and her younger brother who is battling with cancer and they're fighting to make ends meet since both of their parents had passed away. Everyone is going through their own struggles, but Shepard Lambrick, (Jeffrey Combs) the host, chose Iris to participate in his "game", offering her the chance, if she wins, for her brother to be put at the top of the donor list and for her to get all of the money she can imagine. Of course, she reluctantly accepts his offer of his dinner party, oblivious to what the night actually has in store. Upon arriving at the dinner party, Iris and seven other guests find out what they'll have to do in order to have a chance in winning the money that they so desperately need. The game they play is a child's game with a gruesome, cringe-inducing twist: 'would you rather', but they use "would you rather electrocute yourself or the person to your right?" and if one did not complete it well enough or complete it at all, they would be shot and killed.

What would possess someone, who has mounds and mounds of money to spare, to "help" in that kind of way? If someone has that kind of money, they should use it for good, instead of in a stomach-turning, disgusting way that fulfills the host's murderous pleasure. In the movie, you find out that it wasn't the first time that Lambrick hosted this kind of a dinner party, but how could he possibly have held more in the past? He must have an extremely strong stomach and he should be immediately sent to an asylum.

The contestants have it much worse though. Once they find out what the game is, they have no choice but to play or else they'll be killed. The survivor's guilt would be overbearing for sure. Dr. Barden (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.) was the winner of the previous year's game, and one can see the post traumatic stress that he has after dealing with all of the horrifying murders that he had to witness. Dr. Barden tries to stop Lambrick multiple times from going through with his annual "dinner party" and from including Miss Iris, but Lambrick ignores him and goes through with his plan. Dr. Barden wanted to save another soul from going through those extremely hard times that were forced upon him, but he was unable. During the game, Dr. Barden goes to the house at which the "dinner party" to try to save Ms. Iris's life, but he loses his life trying and everyone starts fighting with the host and his bodyguards, in attempt to save their lives. Two other contestants also end up losing their lives as they fight to escape. The importance of life is thrown around like a fragile deer during hunting season. There is little to no care for a person's life in this movie.

At the end of the movie, (spoilers) after Lambrick had found his winner and they bargained for what she wants for her prize, Iris returns to her house. After hours of being home, dealing with all of those emotions of her assisting/witnessing in seven murders, she goes and tries to wake up her younger brother who was asleep in his room. She soon finds out that he wasn't asleep and that he had overdosed on his medicine. He didn't know what she had been through and he didn't know that they now possessed the money and the "ins" with the hospital for them to be okay. It was too late though. Now, Iris had to deal with not only the survivor's guilt, but the unexpected death of her brother. He was the only reason she went through it all in the first place, and now she was completely alone.

This movie was a success in how it made the audience stoop down to the producer's level, in that it makes you hope that Iris would be the "winner" of the game. It was horrifically successful in the way that the other contestants' lives didn't matter once you got to know them as the movie went on. It might be an effective horror/thriller movie, but it's not a movie that one should watch and enjoy, because it degrades the value of life and is so disturbing that it makes the audience turn their heads away in disgust. It should be destroyed, so no one else can waste their time watching such inhumane nonsense. Most horror and thriller movies involve a murder, one way or another, but this movie takes it to a whole other level. This movie contains no moral standards. Kill for money. Everyone is on their own and will do anything to anyone in order to get what they want: money. Citizens, people you pass on the streets, me or you, killing one another to save themselves from being stuck in between a rock and a hard place.