Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Toby Meakins
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Iola Evans, Eddie Marsan, Angela Griffin, Robert
Englund, Ryan Gage
Choose or Die features a prominently displayed poster for
Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street in its opening
scene. But while Toby Meakins' directorial debut features a voice
cameo by Freddy Kreuger himself, Robert Englund, and a
crusty-eyed, resilient young heroine, it has more common with the later
entries in that horror franchise than with Craven's original. By this I
mean it feels largely uninspired and derivative, but occasionally
catches the eye with some clever and inventive visuals.
A throwback to the sort of mainstream horror movies that emerged in the
2000s once the post-Scream slasher fad had finally died
out, Choose or Die doesn't feature a human villain
wielding a knife but rather a curse in the fashion of
Final Destination
and
Ringu. This curse reaches its victim through CURS>R, a 1980s text-based
adventure game that possesses supernatural powers.
We see these dark powers demonstrated in the film's arresting opening
sequence. Retiring to his nostalgia lined man-cave, fiftysomething Hal
(Eddie Marsan) boots up his newly acquired copy of CURS>R and
finds that the game is somehow able to manipulate his reality. At first
it's a bit of fun, with the game even making bottles of beer magically
appear out of thin air, but when Hal is confronted with the ultimatum
"Choose or Die," things take a dark turn, leading to his wife being
manipulated into losing control of her body and cutting their son's
tongue out.
Via her game developer friend Isaac (Asa Butterfield),
struggling wannabe programmer Kayla (Iola Evans) finds herself in
possession of a copy of CURS>R. The package mentions a cash prize of
$125,000 for anyone who can complete the game, and when Kayla calls the
phone number provided she's greeted with a message recorded by Robert
Englund that appears to suggest the cash prize is still available. When
Kayla begins playing the game she finds herself sucked into a nightmare
that endangers both herself and those around her. Teaming up with Isaac,
she tries to track down the mysterious source of the game and free
herself from the curse.
When this latter investigative plotline begins to unspool (that's a pun
that will make sense when you watch the movie), the movie begins to
resemble a poor cousin of films like Videodrome and
The Ring, with its protagonists searching for the root of a sinister broadcast.
We have a recent example of a well executed version of this sort of
thing in Jacob Gentry's
Broadcast Signal Intrusion, which captures the atmospheric retro vibe
Choose or Die aims for but falls short of.
If Choose or Die's plot is simply a line to hang its set-pieces on, at least those
sequences are imaginative. Meakins cleverly manages to expand his film's
world while working to a tight budget by having some sequences play out
in the form of 8-bit video game imagery. The movie's best moment sees
Kayla try to save her crack addict mom (Angela Griffin) from a
giant rat gnawing its way through the walls of their apartment. Rather
than showing us the oversized rodent, Meakins visualises this through
CURS>R, with Kayla guiding a sprite of her mom away from the jaws of
the crudely animated rat (think of the air duct sequence in Ridley
Scott's
Alien). Later a road trip is visualised in the bird's eye view manner of the
classic '80s arcade game Spyhunter. The movie climaxes with a clever
sequence in which two people face off only to find that to physically
harm their opponent they must inflict wounds upon themselves, though
it's a gimmick likely better suited to a Sam Raimi-esque splatstick
comedy (I couldn't help but think what Bruce Campbell and Nicolas Cage
might have done with this setup).
Like the recent Shudder original
The Seed, Choose or Die is a British movie desperately trying to
convince us it's American. I'm not sure what the logic behind this is,
as I've never heard of Americans refusing to watch British movies (if
anything they might be more inclined to watch a movie knowing it's
British), but it never convinces, and these movies end up feeling
Canadian rather than American, with weather, language and racial
dynamics that never feel quite right. One thing that's notably British
about Choose or Die is its awareness of class dynamics.
Isaac is always asking Kayla if she wants to go to some new eatery or
order in food, and knowing she's working on a far lower budget that
Isaac, Kayla tries to change the subject. It's a nice touch that an
American filmmaker may not have given much thought.
