Director: Michael Su
Year: 2022
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Numbers
Genre: Torture Slasher
Plot:
Awakening in a demented dungeon, a group of people find themselves chained in a cell and forced to endure a nightmarish game on social media to garner the most likes to earn their freedom, and the more they stay in the cell find a connection to their host that triggered the situation.
Review:
This was a pretty disappointing genre effort in the style. The main feature that works quite well here with the genre's standouts is the highly impressive and brutal gore featured here. The various traps and games that are played here where each of the characters are forced to undergo a series of self-mutilation and disfigurement to get their likes across serve this incredibly well with a plethora of brutal and incredibly vicious sequences. With characters having their heads explode, breaking out into sores from exposure to gas, chopping their fingers off, smashing hands with hammers, and other types of scenes throughout here, the bloodshed here is quite effective within here as the game takes place deeper into the film. This effectiveness and brutality are enough to raise this up quite enough despite being the only factor to like here.
However, there are several issues here that really drag this down. The main issue here is the film's overall style and approach taking yet another stab at a derided and underwhelming genre with the whole setup of the internet game forcing people to mutilate themselves through torture. It's a setup that comes across as rather pedestrian and underwhelming from the very start, made all the more ridiculous with the laughably unimposing controller that takes one of the most ludicrous means of trying to seem threatening yet is quite problematic. That becomes even worse when the whole reasoning for their confinement and the forced nature of their game just provides a laughably underwhelming and disconnected feel that gives everything one of the least reasonable means for torturing others in the genre which is rather distressing. Combined with an ineffective and inept police investigation that speaks to its low-budget roots with how it zips by the normal means of an investigation, these all manage to hold this one down.
Overview: *.5/5
An underwhelming and highly problematic entry in a divisive genre, this one really only works as a discharge of brutality and bloodshed which might be able to hide the plethora of flaws here. Those that enjoy those factors here or the creative crews' previous work will have the most to like here but most others, especially those turned off by the style and genre, should avoid this one overall.
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