Would You Rather? Or Rather Not?

If you’re looking for grim, sadistic and gruesome, then look no further than the movie Would You Rather from director David Guy Levy. In my humble opinion, this film is even more difficult to sit through than all of the Saw movies combined. This is more than just some psycho in a mask forcing people to do horrible things to themselves, but something that is even darker.

This film focuses heavily on Iris (Brittany Snow), who is the sole caretaker of her brother, who is dying of cancer. She is offered the chance at money and medical help for her brother that they would otherwise never have by a mysterious foundation. All she has to do is go to a dinner party and play a little game. If she wins she gets the money and if she loses…well.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

Right.

The sick and twisted Shepherd Lambrick (Jeffrey Combs) has rounded up eight contestants who are all severely down on their luck in various ways and in desperate need of money and, as in Iris’ case, other large favors. We don’t truly get to know the exact motives of everyone else that is attending the dinner party other than the fact that everyone there is in some sort of deep financial need.

The action starts off small with Lambrick offering Iris, a vegetarian, $10,000 to eat meat and another contestant who is a recovering alcoholic $50,000 to drink an entire decanter of scotch. This all quickly snowballs, however, into a sadistic and twisted game of Would You Rather completely different from that which we all played as children.

The thing that is hardest to watch about this movie is that this man is testing not only what these people are willing to do to themselves, but also what they are willing to put other people through. The entire time Lambrick laughs in glee whenever one of them chooses something particularly gruesome, mocking the people he is torturing with malice.

The entire film calls into question what people are capable of in times of desperation and, at an even deeper level, looks into those who draw some sort of pleasure from the misfortune of others.

I think that the most disturbing part of the entire film is the idea that there are truly people out there who are like Lambrick. There are people who draw some sort of amusement and enjoyment from the torture and pain of other people. They enjoy the power trip of pushing people to their limits and watching them fall over the edge.

If you can stomach some rather gruesome scenes and the entire concept of a person who does things such as this to other people, I would suggest watching this movie at least once.