CHOOSE (2011) When a scarred murderer begins posing his victims terrible choices before killing them, a journalism student is dragged into the race to prevent him striking again. Release date: 16 March 2011 (USA) Director: Marcus Graves I’m sure this sort of thing existed before it, but it’s fair to say that the success of the Saw series spawned no small number of imitators. Like it, love it or hate it, across 8 movies Saw and its sequels have made all but a billion dollars at the box office, making it numerically the most successful horror franchise of all time, beating well-loved series the likes of The Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Hallowe’en silly. And invariably that sort of success draws people to making similar sorts of movies, opening the door for the good, bad and indifferent that goes along with that. And thus, we have 2011’s Choose, a relatively early outing for the now much better-known Katheryn Winnick (who might be familiar to you as Lagertha in Vikings) and another story of a serial killer offering disturbing and seemingly impossible choices to his victims. So, Choose is the story of young Fiona Wagner and her father, Sheriff Tom Wagner, who find themselves caught up in a gruesome web of crime. Our perpetrator isolates his victims and then gives them sixty seconds to make a horrific decision – we open with a young girl having to choose whether to kill her mother or her father, which is probably one of the most harrowing scenes in the movie all told. Some don’t strictly involve death, but in some cases you could take them as worse fates than even that. Tom is hunting after the killer when Fiona is contacted by the perpetrator, and finds herself inexorably drawn into the investigation, which – as she will come to discover – has a very personal connection indeed for her… I’m never quite sure what to make of these sorts of movies – I don’t want to inherently write them all off, because there are some very good examples beyond Saw, which is a series that hangs together surprisingly well, especially considering the number of horror franchises that descend into nonsense. Waz leaps out as an obvious one strong example, and there have been a few other fun and interesting ones like Vile and 13 Sins. But this sort of ‘playful serial killer’ setting up a game for their victims has rather been done to death now. It’d be unfair to say I was bored by Choose – the film is short and taut, and moves at a decent pace – but equally I can’t ever say I was highly invested in the characters or really that shocked by any of the twists in the movie. There is one, but if feels so rushed and half-arsed that it’s hard to really connect with it. In some ways these are the hardest films to review – even if I hated it that would be a stronger opinion for me to get over here, but I just can’t muster up the strength of feeling one way or the other. Choose didn’t really make much impression on the scene or at the box office, and frankly it didn’t make much of an impression on me. There are a fair few cliches in here, which holds things back a bit, and some of the side performances aren’t all that great either. It was only about half an hour in that I realised I had actually watched this before, and that’s probably the best summation I can possibly give to this one… RATING: 4.5/10. It won’t frustrate you, or annoy you, nor will it leave you cowering on the floor in fear of gasping in shock. To most horror fans, Choose is probably a fairly innocuous horror film that focuses more on suggestion than flat-out gore, and might appeal to some of the more squeamish readers around these parts. Although, with that said, if you’re squeamish then you probably haven’t found any great number of films you’ve wanted to check out in the whole history of Film Gutter. I’m sure you can probably choose a better horror movie than this one, though there are probably plenty worse out there – I was just left feeling distinctly meh here, which is probably one of the worst sensations to come away from a film with… TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITE [FILM REVIEW] NO TIME TO DIE The Heart and soul of extreme horror movie reviews |
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