While I really love the idea of this film the actual world building around it didn’t make a lot of sense to me, and in some ways I wish we could’ve delved more into that aspect just so it became clearer.

We follow Kayla, a young woman who lives with her mother and is down on her luck with money. She randomly finds an old video game where it claims it has a cash prize and so she decides to give it a go. This game is a very early computer game where everything is text based and you make a choice out of a certain number of choices to progress the game, however these choices have real world implications and soon Kayla realises this game is a lot more deadly than first appeared to be.

My issue with the film was the world building aspect and that this game had real-world consequences, so if she chose for someone to get hurt they would, however for the game to progress a lot of the real world around Kayla would change. For example when she is with her friend Isaac a red and blue door suddenly appear on his wall and next minute they are transported into the swimming pool where her younger brother died, and you wonder is this all a dream or is this really happening because how is she able to move throughout this world in reality?

In so many of these sorts of films usually the world is virtual so it seems real to them but actually isn’t or there is no world bending and it’s all played throughout the game. Taking control of people and making them do different things can be much more believable than actually creating elements of the world around you that weren’t there before, like the door choices.

I also felt that the ending was a little rushed. At the start we don’t begin the film with Kayla we actually begin it with a different character who sees his wife chop off the tongue of their son which is very dark but really engaging, and so to then see this character come back later on and be brought into this world that Kayla is going through was really interesting. However I did feel as he was labelled ‘the final boss’ for Kayla to defeat it felt a bit too easy and simple and didn’t have the punch that I was really hoping for. And because in the end we see that Kayla decides to take this newfound power that she’s got from the game and make choices and changes in her life that she wouldn’t have done previously it felt a bit off to me and this part of her character development I really didn’t like.

It’s a perfectly fine film, it’s not too long, it does have an interesting premise however as I’ve said in this review there are many moments that didn’t sit right for me and there are definitely other horrors that I would prefer to watch over this one. That’s not say it’s a bad film, it’s just not my cup of tea.

What do you think of Choose or Die?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding