Director: Louisa Warren
Year: 2020
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Appearing for a big tournament, a group of gamers start a new game where they have to survive a series of levels against various villains and killers sent against them to complete to win the grand prize offered by the game organizers, but soon learn something far more dangerous is occurring.
Review:
Overall, this was a decidedly decent if somewhat flawed genre effort. One of the better aspects of this one is the way it manages to bring about a rather modern setup with some intriguing work here. Going for a strong lifeline on gaming culture with the appearance of the group signing up for the tournament, running through the rules of the process, and the base strategies of each level, the whole experience makes for a wholly intriguing starting point with enough hints and highlights that something’s wrong. That they’re all playing with the implication that they can be hurt in the game as well as real-life, hiding a really dark secret with the dark rules of the game, how they’re going to get everything together for the viewers, and the purpose behind the whole setup which makes for a strong starting point.
As well, once it moves into the individual games, there’s a lot to like with the way everything comes together. Treating the experience like mini-movies with how the levels are designed with tasks, challenges, and villains unique to that level come together, it allows for a nice series of encounters throughout here, including the fight with the scarecrows in the cornfields or the series of stalking scenes against the nuns. As the characters are allowed multiple lives until they’re truly dead, this adds some fun where they can return multiple times are the different levels, which keeps the body count decent enough at such a small level. The intensive fighting going on in the final levels adds a decent touch to this, where it relies more on strategy rather than brute force, which makes an intriguing enough aspect with this one.
There are some issues here that hold it down. The biggest factor against this one is the wholly unnecessary sense of change that goes on with the rules that provide this one with the chance to offer up expected and unsurprising twists throughout the film. It’s not that shocking to see blatant betrayals throughout the gameplay, which comes off as incredibly obvious how they would act, even though the goal of the game was teamwork. These all bring about some generally lackluster revelations about their true purpose for being involved in the game, which comes about especially once the more nefarious members are allowed to come about and show their true colors. There’s not much about these that shocks or even registers since they’re all expected, and with the low budget on display also hindering this one are its biggest issues.
Overview: ***/5
A generally solid if problematic slasher effort, there are some intriguing elements that handle enough positive points to help overcome some unnecessary drawbacks, keeping it down. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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