Choose or Die review

Choose or Die, also known as CURS>9, is a 2022 sci-fi horror film about a cursed computer game from the 1980s that hit Netflix last month. The game is an archaic throwback to the nascent years of gaming. The film follows a broke college student, Kayla, (Iola Evans) who happens across the titular game at her coder friend Isaac’s (Asa Butterfield) home. The game indicates that there is a six-figure prize for the winner who beats it. Isaac informs Kayla that many of these prizes are unclaimed. Needing the money, she dials the number and receives instructions to enter the number code at the end of the game when beaten to win the money.

Choose or Die is imbued with dark magic that brings to life the deadly choices that appear in the game as the user plays. Shit gets dangerous pretty quickly as Kayla is forced to make escalating more deadly decisions.

I really like the premise of Choose Or Die but like many of its Netflix siblings, the film struggles to capitalize on a good story and plot. Choose Or Die starts off well enough but the ending wasn’t exhilarating at all. The final fight scene was illogical with poor decisions made by every party involved.

The film would have been better if it focused on the actual gameplay more. The film had an opportunity to lean into its action/horror elements heavier, but it instead went the humanistic route and chose to have Kayla and Isaac find a real world solution to the game instead of finding one in its gameplay. Isaac is a coder who is very knowledgeable on gaming and Kayla is learning from him, so that she can get a job In the field. The film had an opportunity to really nerd out and become a true gaming film, but it didn’t invest into this potential, which is shame because this could have been a really exciting movie otherwise.

Kayla’s backstory is touched on but aside from explaining why she’s angsty, it doesn’t do much to advance the plot aside from her motivation for needing the money. The abuse that her mother is suffering at the hands of her landlord is unnecessary to provide motivation for Kayla’s desperation for the money, because her trying to get back in college could have been motivation enough. We didn’t really need to go into sexual abuse to hammer this point. That felt pretty superfluous. This run time on this side plot should instead have been allocated to more screen time of the actual game being played.

I do like the first half of the film. The premise is nice, although it’s not totally unique but it still works. I enjoyed that it’s a throwback to the 80s. Computing from the 80s feels like it was 100 years ago, so something about finding an old computer game feels like finding Excalibur. It feels ancient and mysterious because so much from that time has become lost in history. That retro ambience was really cool, too. The film could have been stronger if it doused itself with this retro ambience even more. I liked Iola Evans as the lead. She played the angst-ridden and psychologically scarred Kayla well. Asa Butterfield did a good job of playing the friend with the crush without coming off whiny for her affections. He seemed like he genuinely cared for Kayla, and even though it’s obvious there are feelings, he played the role well – simultaneously as a friend and as a suitor.

Choose or Die did a nice job of drawing the watcher in but the juice ultimately wasn’t worth the squeeze. My main gripe is that it didn’t stick its nailing. That ending and final showdown was a letdown. The best parts of the film were the characters acting out the game. The film would have been exponentially more fun if even more run time were devoted to this. It’s a shame that it didn’t really try to puff its chest out with what it did best. Choose or Die starts off strong – and spooky – but wanders off the path, and unfortunately a promising film ended up being pretty run of the mill.

- 5.0/10