PLOT SUMMARY: When Kayla comes across a retro interactive game, she thinks it is an easy way to win money not knowing that playing the game brings about dire consequences.
When we choose to play a game, it is usually because we like the graphics, the story, or the gameplay.
Over the years, more games have taken the role-play route, giving the player control over the character's actions in any given situation. The decisions a player makes throughout the game impact the story and in some games, give a different ending.
Hours of fun, right? Because after getting one ending, why not try playing the game differently to receive the other ending everyone is talking about online?
It is fun when we get a little bit of control in a game, is it not? Or so we think. Ultimately, all of the decisions we think we are making is pre-decided. The game is encoded in such a way that so and so decision a player makes will lead to a particular consequence. The player never writes the ending.
Now imagine if a game you are playing controls you?
CHOOSE OR DIE Movie Plot
The movie begins with a weary man called Hal playing an interactive text game on his computer. His name is Hal and in the dining room his wife Laura and son Gabe are bickering. Laura is having a hard time disciplining her son.
Hal is then surprised to find that the game CURS>R seems to be interacting with him. He wants another beer, he's got it.
Soon enough, the game wants him to decide between his wife and son. With time running out, he chooses tongue.
When he enters the dining room he sees Gabe without a tongue.
Hal is shocked but is then forced to play a series of rounds that he manages to survive.
We then meet Kayla, a student who works nights as a cleaner at a pretty much sparsely furnished building. She tries to stand up for her coworker but is pretty much told to shut up by her supervisor. Kayla desperately needs the job and an escape from her mundane and troubled life.
Her tragic past includes a junkie mother and the memories of her dead brother whom she couldn't save from drowning. The rent collector keeps lurking about mocking Kayla of her conditions and talking about putting her mother to work. Kayla prefers ignoring him.
Her only friend is Isaac who doesn't mind her barging into his lair whenever she wants. It isn't clear where Isaac lives. Is it a studio? Someone's cellar?
It's practically a room with a desk and a computer. There's also a messy couch because Isaac is always too busy typing away on the computer to spare even a few minutes to fold his clothes and clear the couch.
Anyway, Kayla comes and goes whenever she wants and has completely friendzoned Isaac. One day, she finds a game in his pile of mess...CURS>R. She automatically assumes it's okay to take it and that Isaac will say yes to everything she asks from him. He does say yes, though. But that's not all. The game also has a number that a player must call when they win the game.
Kayla jumps the gun and calls the number first. The prize money is $125,000 after all. The person on the other line is none other than Robert Englund.
Now I have to believe that COVID restrictions must have made it challenging to shoot movies because I can't imagine how the filmmakers were content with only using the voice and not the actor himself. Maybe the movie was shot during the lockdown? Maybe the actor was unwell? Or maybe everyone thought his presence would overshadow the performance of the other actors.
No matter the reason, we are left with a one minute scene where we can hear his voice at least. And that is the highlight of this movie.
Kayla promises to share her prize money with Isaac and he happily gives away the game to her for free because he's obviously crushing on her.
Kayla goes to her favorite cafe after work and sets up the game. To her surprise, the game is able to alter her reality and pick on the waitress for some reason.
So basically, the gamer needs to play a game where other people can be harmed. A pretty sick move by the developer of the game.
Sure enough, Kayla is made to choose to harm the waitress. The poor waitress keeps breaking the glasses against her control. She knows what she's doing is wrong but she also has no control over her actions.
Kayla is given a choice to make the waitress stop and she does opt for it not realizing that the only way the waitress will stop is if she's dead.
The waitress begins picking up the pieces of glass and starts munching on them like chips. Her terror and helplessness is palpable but there is no way to stop it. She collapses and dies.
The first thing Kayla does after she experiences this is to run off to Isaac and try to convince him of the game's ability to alter reality. Isaac may have an obvious crush on her but he's not going to buy into her craziness just yet.
The next day, Kayla is working again when the only computer on the floor turns on and the game starts to play. Kayla receives a call from her mother who tells her about a giant rat coming after her. Kayla is given more choices and she tries to navigate her mother out of trouble. Eventually she has to tell her mother to jump out of the window rather than be consumed by the rat. Her mother does so and there's a splat sound. Except her mother is fine and recovering in the hospital. The house, however, is in tatters. The rent collector makes a comment about her purposely destroying property and Kayla gets pissed off.
Kayla is off to see Isaac again who humors what he thinks are her delusions by checking out the game. He finds a code that doesn't make sense in the game and he begins to believe Kayla's story.
But soon enough Isaac realizes he shouldn't have gotten himself mixed up with the game when he finds himself in trouble and is knocked out. Kayla sees a vision of her brother and must decide whether to save Isaac first or her brother. She chooses Isaac, refusing to give in to her guilt.
Isaac is flattered but Kayla quickly reminds him that she knows the boy was not her brother, and just a trick.
Choose or Die Ending Explained with Spoilers!
The duo then use the number to call for the prize, and trace it to a storage facility where they find a couple of VHS tapes. Of course Isaac has a VHS player.
Through the tapes they learn that a man called Beck had created this game who found some strange symbols of a curse. He decides to create a game of it based on his theory that the more the one who is cursed suffers, the one who has cursed him will benefit.
To put his theory to test, he enlists the help of a stranger who clearly seems like he may be friends with Beck. Turns out you should never be friends with mad geniuses.
Beck sets up the game for him and the man is prompted to choose between eating the computer on which the game is being played or his own arm.
In a separate room, Beck uses a knife to cut his arm deeply. His friend, thinking all of this is a joke thinks that if he puts something in his mouth it rather be something soft and chewy rather than something hard and crunchy. He chooses his arm.
In the next instant the friend loses control of his motor functions. He starts munching on his arm and Beck's blood reverses back into the arm, not even leaving a stain on the table or his arm.
Meanwhile the game turns on again and Kayla finds out she's moved on to Level Four. Hurray for her. The game has commended her after every game.
This time Isaac is the only one nearby and so of course Kayla has to choose to rewind or forward. Isaac has a tape inside him. The game thinks Isaac is a video cassette.
Kayla tries both ways, trying to figure out which is less destructive to her friend. The answer is both. Isaac is made to spit out and then swallow the tape as Kayla plays around with the knob. Somehow Isaac manages to tell Kayla to make a choice and she does which ends up with Isaac vomiting all the tape and then collapsing.
Using his dying breath he tells her he's better at her than games and he was the one who won that first time. Kayla tells him to save his breath but it is long gone when he had a tape in his insides. Isaac dies.
While Kayla grieves her friend she also finds out that she has passed the level and must now prepare for the final boss battle.
She's given coordinates and she hurries over to meet...Hal.
Hal is dressed in all black and sitting at the table with Laura and Gabe. His son has clearly been misbehaving because he has photos of an eye and a mouth where his real eye and mouth is supposed to be.
Hal is wearing black so that means he's a villain. When Kayla tells him she played the game and that she was sent here, Hal can't believe he was chosen by the game to be a villain. He explains how he was shown mercy by the game after playing only two levels when he promised he would make copies of the game and distribute them.
The filmmakers were certain the movie would be a rousing success and already left breadcrumbs to possible sequels.
Hal is enraged and attacks Kayla and then learns to his shock that he's the one who got injured instead. And vice versa.
Basically it was the one who cursed who benefited when the cursed one suffered. When Beck's friend was made to eat his arm, Beck's arm didn't get gnawed off.
If Hal is the one who made copies and distributed the game, and Kayla, or rather Isaac found one, then they should be the cursed ones? So the more Kayla is harmed the more Hal should be healed. Then again if there are no injuries then there's nothing to heal.
Or is it that when both cursed ones meet the injuries they inflict hurt them only? And somewhere in the corner of the world, Beck is benefiting somehow?
Why this happens doesn't make sense. Hal and Kayla try to harm each other by harming themselves until Laura decides she wants in on the game and wants to get rid of Hal. For some reason Gabe is super loyal to his father and tries to help him.
Kayla then drowns herself in the pool and Hal begins to choke on water. As she takes her last breath, Hal dies. We assume everyone has died and the movie gets over but nope, Kayla is pulled out and she's okay.
Laura assures her that she won't let Kayla get into any trouble over Hal's death. Kayla receives a message that she has won the game and is now the CURS>R.
Hurray for her. So where is the price money and where is Robert Englund?
Kayla, realizing she has the power to curse people and heal, curses the rent collector who dies. As he does, her injuries heal.
She then receives a call from Beck who appears to be the owner of the vacant building Kayla worked as a cleaner in. He consults her regarding who they should curse next. Kayla heroically replies that only those who deserve it.
The movie ends.
Choose or Die is a confusing film that lacks thrills to keep the pace going. Kayla's character too is not constructed well enough to attract sympathy.
And there are plenty of hints left for a sequel.
Considering how bland this movie is, would anyone care for a sequel? And even if there turns out to be a sequel to this lackluster movie hopefully it will feature better Choose or Die games.
Scare Scale: 2/5
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