Die (2010)

Genre: Slasher
Director:  Dominic James
Country:  USA
Availability:  Redbox

Die really reminded me of Saw, even though I've only seen Saw I and Saw II and it wasn't really like either of them. Still, you have a group of people selected because of some bad thing that they've done and miraculously they're all connected to each other and being held against their will by Mr. Bad Guy who wants them to suffer for their sins because he has, you know... issues.

It may sound like I'm poking fun but Die was actually a pretty good movie. While we're introduced to our players before they wind up in cells, and we see and hear of their particular faults beforehand, we never truly know how they're connected until the bitter end. There's a detective running around in the streets of the city trying to draw the clues together to solve a few cases that appear linked, and it's here that we learn of our killer, his motivations, and the scale of what's going on. Throughout the movie we have flashbacks of the characters in their normal lives - giving us glimpses of the clues that may bind them. These characters, though fitting into their roles appropriately as The Doctor, The Whore, The Politician, The Gambler, The Cop - all felt complex and interesting enough that it kept me wanting to explore their stories.

While the kills weren't too terribly creative they didn't really need to be, gambling for the lives of strangers and knowing full well that your turn will eventually come was interesting enough. I enjoyed the proper level of confusion and terror that each one of our players possessed. No one seemed to be ruining the show with yelling or freak outs, while it's true that those are somewhat plausible reactions, they're not too terribly enjoyable ones to have to sit through. And our Bad Guy was interesting, too. Not only was he somewhat charming, but he also appeared to be a sympathetic and levelheaded host. There were times where it almost seemed to pain him to do the horrible things he was doing, and this made him likable despite his role as the villain.

Die doesn't exactly fit into any genre neatly. It's not torture porn, as my previous comparison to Saw might have suggested, nor is it truly horror. But it doesn't really seem to be truly crime thriller either. I think it is perhaps a smattering of all of those genres, and in this way Die seems more fulfilling than most.

3 out of 5 stars