Last week, I ventured out into the cold to take in
Rue Morgue’s first Cinemacabre of 2013. They were
screening a movie called Would You Rather, which I had only just
heard about a few weeks before.
In need of money to care for her sick
brother, Iris (Britanny Snow) attends a dinner party thrown by
wealthy philanthropist Shepard Lambrick (Jeffrey Combs). Unfortunately
for her and the seven other guests, Lambrick has cooked up an evening
they won’t soon forget – or perhaps even survive.
Would You Rather is not a bad little
film. Taken from conception to release in less than two years,
director David Guy Levy keeps things simple. Shot largely in one
location, this dialogue driven piece of flamboyant nastiness is a
good example of doing a lot with a little. It has a speedy setup,
gets right into the meat quickly and is one of those movies that gets
better as it goes along. This could’ve easily been a trite exercise
in torture porn, but succeeds by not being excessive nor overly
convoluted, things for which that subgenre have always been guilty.
Would You Rather features a ton of
familiar faces, including Robb Wells, John Heard and Sasha Grey, but
the movie shines, perhaps unsurprisingly, due to genre veteran
Jeffrey Combs. He is fantastic in this, truly relishing the role as
sadistic aristocrat Lambrick. I can’t recall him being this good
since The Frighteners nearly twenty years ago. I also have to give
Levy – as well as writer Steffen Schlachtenhaufen – props on the
ending, as well. Following all the diabolical events that transpired,
coming up with a fitting ending could’ve been tricky, but I felt
there was something darkly poetic about its conclusion.
Jeffrey Combs as Mr. Lambrick in Would You Rather. |
During the Q&A via Skype with Levy
after the screening, someone brought up if the film was a comment on
the – to use the now tired phrase – “one percenters” and
their perceived sense of entitlement. Levy replied that he could see
that, but his real intent was to combine his fascinations with
the secret societies glimpsed in films like Eyes Wide Shut, and
infamous human behaviour studies, such as the Stanford prison and
Milgram experiments.
I took a gamble on this one, and came
out pleasantly surprised. Armed with a juicy idea and the
considerable talents of Jeffrey Combs, Levy just let human behaviour
take its course.