Netflix’s ‘Choose or Die’: Choose to Watch It!

Kayla (Iola Evans) is a broke wannabe computer programmer. Her best friend Isaac (Asa Butterfield), a broke wannabe game designer, has bought a role-playing video game from the ’80s, Curs>r. It promises a $125,000 reward for anyone who can beat it, piquing Kayla’s curiosity. Once she gets it converted from cassette to her laptop, she finds that the game is far from harmless nostalgia.

The film makes its point about the corruptive nature of power and hunger for profit from the beginning, with the opening shots of a palatial house. The wealthy owner, Hal (Eddie Marsan), a collector of retro games, is forced to hurt his (awful) family or make copies of Curs>r. He makes copies. Eventually. Meanwhile Kayla is poor and highly likable, supporting her agoraphobic mother (Angela Griffin), who’s devastated after the death of Kayla’s little brother. Kayla’s also quietly virtuous. She cleans an office building for a living (for the same company that rejected her application to be a programmer), and tells her boss, who calls another cleaner stupid for being pregnant, “Don’t talk to her like that.” On level one of the game, a waitress (Ioanna Kimbook) is dragged in and forced to hurt herself. When Kayla runs to help her, the girl’s boss, possessed by the game, jumps out, and Kayla throws him aside without thinking of her own safety. A scummy ancillary character, Lance (Ryan Gage), trying to convince Kayla to prostitute herself for rent money, literally puts a price on her. The film is awash with corrupt characters trying to exploit others for gain; Kayla refuses to be a victim and takes power of her own without hurting anyone (who doesn’t deserve it).

The filmmakers are great at building tension. There aren’t many jump scares; the horror is achieved with the continuous threat of something appalling happening. For example the scene when Kayla is looking for a rat that menaced her mother; she’s doing the typical slow horror movie search-walk, but the soundtrack is blaring a chorus of ominous synth pop overlaid with soundbites of Kayla’s mother sobbing hysterically, and it’s really effective. The game’s method of torturing people is consistently fascinating; it’s sometimes even genuinely shocking. I was surprised by how much the bloodshed affected me; many of the characters are engaging or at least sympathetic. Kayla and Isaac have a will they/won’t they potential romance going on, which generally nettles me (not every movie has to have a heteronormative romantic subplot!), but theirs is cute and painless.

I also enjoy Kayla and Isaac’s race/gender swap. Isaac, who’s white, takes on the role usually consigned to actors of color (and usually women), constantly asking Kayla, who’s Black, if she’s all right and being downright servile. Delightfully, Isaac is even recognized by the game as Kayla’s “loyal squire”. In terms of intelligence, the two are refreshingly equal; Kayla is just as knowledgeable about complex technological stuff as Isaac. However, physically, Kayla is the stronger one of the pair. Upon coming across a locked door they need to enter, Isaac muses, “We gotta find something to bust this open.” Kayla then uses her shoulder and bursts through effortlessly.

My gripes are few. Mainly it’s the scene when Kayla and Isaac go to the building where the game was made and come across a VHS tape that conveniently shows the game being developed (Beck [Joe Bolland] is taking advantage of a hungry guy by getting him to agree to be experimented on in exchange for food, yet again reinforcing the theme), and is even rewound to the beginning. The tape’s contents are really creepy though, so that complaint is small. My only other issue is that Kayla leaves a trail of bodies behind her that are never investigated. A police officer shows up to question her after the incident with the waitress and is never seen again, rendering that scene pointless.

I was enthralled from beginning to end. Robert Englund having a voice cameo as himself should be cheesy, as should Isaac geeking out over it and doing an impression of him, but somehow it isn’t. Overall, Choose or Die is gory and disturbing but still optimistic at its heart. Check it out if you’re in the mood for a real prize of a movie.