WOULD YOU RATHER admit that you watched something this mean or plead guilty and have your streaming service cut off before The Walking Dead wraps up? From the Ten Little Indians school of cast-elimination, this 2012 chiller is upgristled for the Saw generation. Directed by David Guy Levy, the trial-by-sadism has eight financially desperate people as dinner guests of a rich weirdo who plays “games” with them: the winner gets all their money problems solved. The others get—offed.
The acting’s fine, from Brittany Snow, Enver Gjokaj, John Heard, Sasha Grey and June Squibb among the trapped contestants and especially Jeffrey Combs, going merrily bonkers as the depraved host. The fiendishness was written by Steffen Schlachtenhaufen. With apologies to the no doubt nice Schlachtenhaufens out there, that sounds like the perfect name for someone who would write something demented like this. Sick & twisted, but on those terms, it works.
93 minutes, with Jonny Coyne, Robin Lord Taylor and Lawrence Gilliard Jr.