Genres

Visitors Review

2012-05-25 05:09:43

Shot Well - But Borrows from Too Many Other Movies

Choose follows the story of Fiona Wagner, a young woman who tracks down a serial killer that forces his victims to choose between one of two gruesome fates. With the help of her detective father and a mysterious therapist, Fiona tries to discover the identity of the killer as he drags her into a deadly game of cat and mouse.The good news about Choose is that it's shot better than most horror flicks that go straight to video. The cinematography, color correction and cast make it a step above most Netflix fare. B-List movie veterans Kevin Pollak (The Usual Suspects) and Bruce Dern (The Burbs) bring a bit of film experience to the show.The bad news is that the concept behind the film isn't terribly original. Choose borrows elements from Saw, Untraceable, and Seven. The killer's gimmick gets old fast, and isn't consistent throughout the film. The strongest part of the film is the intro, compared to the conclusion, and isn't saved by a final plot twist. Katheryn Winnick is ridiculously hot as Fiona. But tight undershirts aside, there's no nudity in the film. There's little gore, although there are at least two scenes in the movie that would cause audiences to jump.Choose is worth watching at least once if you're a diehard fan of horror thrillers. But I definitely wouldn't recommend buying the DVD until after you've given it a rental.

2012-05-25 00:38:44

I GUESS I'M FREE TO GO

The movie opens up with a young teen girl (played beautifully by Shana Dowdeswell)who has just discovered boys. She has really cool parents as she excitedly chats on her cell to her bff about a boy who looked at her and asked to copy her homework. You can't help but like her then suddenly she is thrust into a room where her parents are tied up by an intruder. The crazed man makes her choose which one of her parents must die, or the whole family dies. Her dad instructs her to choose him, which she does. The intruder also makes our teen do the killing. Cue credits.The next scene teases us with student reporter Fiona Wagner (Katheryn Winnick)heading for the shower. She is spooked and soon her father, a policeman (Kevin Pollak) is there to calm her down. Her mother was a suicide victim... or was she? She gets an IM about her suicide. Other people in town are having to make sick choices...and in her suicide note her mother mentioned making a choice. The movie, which comes off as a whodunit, shows us a very "clear" silhouette of the mad man's face and we get to clearly hear his voice, although we never get introduced to his character.Unfortunately the movie lacks giving us clues and the end comes off as a bit bizarre. Katheryn Winnick does her best to salvage a script that needed work. Kevin Pollack seemed to just be going through the motions.The act of violence is not graphically shown, but rather we see the results.No sex, no nudity, rare f-bomb.

therefdotcom 2012-05-18 03:24:59

sad AKA one good idea just is not enough

as a screen writer i am able to enjoy movies for multiple reasons,apart from the entertainment aspect alone. i admire great ideas, so iam able to overlook major flaws, just as long as the script is halfwaytight and the idea to flaw ratio does not get out of hand.MAJOR spoilers ahead!my motivation to see this movie was ignited by the basic idea of thekiller that forces you to "chose", which seems like a brilliant basicidea to start a script. actually even further i was convinced that itwould be almost impossible to mess this up. oh, how wrong i was... forthe second time even. the very last time i got tricked by a great basic idea was the movie"die (2010)" (as in dice, not as in death), which has a similarityinteresting "chose someones destiny" theme and interestingly fallsapart just as early into it's runtime, as this movie."choose" manages to put off it's audience within the very first 2minutes into the runtime, which is incredible. it is almost anachievement of some kind, as i rarely lose my interest so quickly. veryfew movies have managed to do that before. even the ridiculously euro-trashy "das komabrutale duell" kept me interested (laughing) for thefirst 30 minutes.the problem with this movie as well as with "die" is, that the writerscompletely ignored all human factor AT ALL. since both movies kind ofcome off as cheap "saw" knockoffs i am kinda curious if they even saw(no pun intended) the original "saw" movie. OK, long talk short: dear fellow screenwriters, if you feel the need toinclude into your story that one or more person is/are forced intochoosing their own or someone else's fate, then for Christ's sake,write it in a way that the person you are writing about is forced intosome kind of machine or chair or whatever force/tool that leaves themno inch of other movements than the ones that are needed to make saidchoice. even worse, don't write that the killer reaches them a deadlyweapon. no, it does not matter if you write a gun or whatever into thekillers hand. it does not matter, because every living person willdiscard the killers game and take his chance instantly.this is why the "saw" movies worked for the most part and the namedmovies did not.die/choose scenario: killer holds gun to characters head, hands overweapon, tells other character to hurt third character. all three peopleare in close range of each other. that does not work, people. e.g. inthis movie they really expect someone to rather kill her father, whileher mother watches with a knife, instead of attacking the killer?seriously? that does not make the script stupid, it also makes thekiller an insanely stupid character. saw scenario: voice of "killer" (who is not even in the room) comingfrom a tape tells character to hurt second character, who is immobile,to free third character, that is shown on a TV (person is also not inthe room). additionally the room is sealed for the time of the game.this works, because there is nothing left to chance. the second big mistake they made with this particular movie is, thatthey would not stick to their guns, which would be that the killersgame is solely a choice of letting someone chose one or the other lovedones death, which is a very good basic idea, as i already pointed out,but they could not even do THAT. it switches to "chose your eye sightor your fame/career", which was the moment where i lost all remaininghope in this flick. it is double jeopardy since that also destroys anyplausibility. serial killers don't change their ways such significantlyfrom hit to hit. the unabomber did not suddenly switched to knifestabbing out of a sudden. know what i mean?.... and it gets worse.anyway, i really liked the cinematography, soundtrack, cuts, lightingand the acting was OK as well. nevertheless, the script killed it forme.

Rio Tobias Deacon 2012-05-05 21:44:00

I thought it was quite good...

While I will admit that I wouldn't classify this film as the best i'veever seen, it really wasn't that bad. It has been compared to Saw quitea bit and although I suppose some aspects are Saw-esque, you reallycant compare them. Saw ended up becoming about torture rather than thevalue of life, in my opinion, whereas Choose really wasn't like that.Its nice to watch a film where they don't get torn apart by somethingor other (not that i'm complaining, I like the Saw films but sometimesenough is enough and you want to see something a little different) Justwanted to get that out of the way.Choose is great in that it comes up with a few fresh ideas. I don'tknow about anyone else, but I have never seen a film where a teen hasto choose who survives between their parents. I found that quitefascinating. While some of the plot would be recognisable in variousother films (I'd figured the twist out within the first 15 minutes ofthe film starting... I watch a lot of movies, what can I say?) younever really come across a movie that hasn't taken an idea fromsomewhere else and changed it to suit their script. Such as theResident Evil films and 28 days/weeks later. They have so many similaraspects I could scream!! I'm aware that 28 days later came out a fewmonths after so they were the ones who took the idea but you catch mydrift.What was also good was that they weren't determined to show every'choice' they were to make. Some movies like to prolong death ortorture scenes whereas in this film they got the point across, showedwhat they needed to and moved on. After watching so many gory slashermovies, its nice to see it done simply.The only real issue I have with this movie is predictability. They madeit far too obvious where the story was going to end which almost spoiltit for me and probably others too. I give it a 7 due to that fact andalthough it was good, it still didn't merit any higher.I hope that this was somewhat helpful, I didn't want to give too muchaway because where is the fun in that?

2012-05-01 08:15:36

I GUESS I'M FREE TO GO.

WARNING: PLOT SPOILER THAT OCCURS BEFORE THE CREDITS FOR YOU WHINERS. The movie opens up with a young teen girl (played beautifully by Shana Dowdeswell)who has just discovered boys. She has really cool parents as she excitedly chats on her cell to her bff about a boy who looked at her and asked to copy her homework. You can't help but like her then suddenly she is thrust into a room where her parents are tied up by an intruder. The crazed man makes her choose which one of her parents must die, or the whole family dies. Her dad instructs her to choose him, which she does. The intruder also makes our teen do the killing. The next scene teases us with student reporter Fiona Wagner (Katheryn Winnick)heading for the shower. She is spooked and soon her father, a policeman (Kevin Pollak) is there to calm her down. Her mother was a suicide victim... or was she? She gets IM about her suicide. Other people in town are having to make sick choices...and in her suicide note her mother mentioned making a choice. The movie, which comes off as a whodunit, shows us a very "clear" silhouette of the mad man's face and we get to clearly hear his voice, although we never get introduced to his character. Meanwhile father and daughter are working separately on trying to solve the case where the killer's calling card is a maze left at the scene of the crime. Unfortunately the movie lacks giving us clues and the end comes off as a bit bizarre. Katheryn Winnick does her best to salvage a script that needed work. Kevin Pollack seemed to just be going through the motions. The "terror" of the movie is in the choices that people must make. The act of violence is not graphically shown, but rather we see the results. No sex, no nudity, rare f-bomb.

Neil Welch 2012-04-26 16:39:47

Good

A teenager wakes and finds her parents tied up, and a derangedassailant gives her 60 seconds to choose which one of them must diebefore forcing her to carry out the killing herself. This pre-titles sequence leads to a story of a psycho nut, offering hisvictims impossible choices, tied up with a trainee reporter and herChief of Police dad (and possibly also with her mother's suicide yearsearlier) The reviews on IMDb all seem disappointed that this isn't Saw, or avariation of it. It is instead a psychological suspense thriller whichdevelops steadily, without much in the way of action sequences, andwith a relatively low gore quotient (but I said low, not non-existent).It is well photographed, well acted, relatively well-written, and asatisfying small scale thriller (satisfying unless you want it to besomething it isn't). It keeps you guessing throughout and theexplanation, as eventually revealed, does not cheat you.The only thing seriously wrong with the film is the ending (as distinctfrom the resolution of the story), which is somewhat perfunctory andslightly unsatisfying, and followed by a wholly unnecessary andunconvincing "shock" addition.But overall this is not a bad movie.

RickHarvey 2012-04-24 18:30:51

To choose or not to choose?

Yawn. Acting is poor, characters are one dimensional. Story is rubbish.Lots of cheep thrills and a glut of cliché unimaginative frights. Nopointing rambling on about how bad the film is. Juxaposed with Saw, itdoes resemble the film in terms of it using a similar plot device.Everything in the film is unprovoked. The writing is poor. Everythingis poor. If i had to pluck out one positive, heck, one mixed response, it wouldbe that the main actress is nice too look at. I would choose not towatch.Bad film. Very Bad film. If like me, you check the rating beforeviewing and you have no choice but to watch it, then thank your starsthat it only rolls for 83 minutes

2012-04-21 14:14:27

Very captivating thriller

This film was extremely interesting from beginning to end. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I would have preferred a bit more content. There should have been better use of Bruce Dern. I hope there's a sequel.

2012-04-20 04:17:26

Choose

This review is from: Choose (DVD) This was an thilling and exceiting moive that will have you on the edge of your seat. Just when you think you can take a breath and the end is in sight the action starts right back up and takes on a thrilling ride once again to the very edge and than over the side. This is a moive that you should see if you enjoy being scared...This is a great buy!

Claudio Carvalho 2012-04-13 07:03:51

Seeing This Movie Is an Awful Choice

Fiona Wagner (Katheryn Winnick) is studying for the master's degree injournalism and still grieves her mother Samantha that committed suicidein the Crescent Hotel three years ago. Her father, Detective Tom Wagner(Kevin Pollak), is investigating the brutal death of the lawyer ElliotVincent, who was murdered by his teenager daughter that was forced tochoose between killing him or having her mother, little brother andherself killed by the sadistic criminal that had broken in their house.When the pianist Simon Campbell (Tom Cleary) is forced to choosebetween losing his fingers or his hearing, Tom realizes that a derangedserial-killer is attacking people. Meanwhile, Fiona is contacted by thecriminal through the codename ISO_17 that shows pictures of the modelJenna (Kate Nauta), who had had to choose between her face or hervision, with her face destroyed. Fiona recalls that her mother hadmentioned something about choice in her suicide note and she decides toinvestigate the sadistic man, disclosing secrets about her own family."Choose" is a thriller with a scary and sick beginning, when a daughterhas to choose between killing her beloved father or her family.Unfortunately the story is terrible, and even fans of sadistic deathmight not like this flick. The resemblance of the face of the unknownKatheryn Winnick with Scarlett Johansson is impressive. In the end,seeing this movie is an awful choice. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "A Escolhida" ("The Chose One")

harekrishna 2012-04-13 16:46:31

This movie or a good one? CHOOSE!

Caught this at Leeds Hyde Park Picture House's Night of the Dead andwish I hadn't. Dull, by-the-numbers serial killer slasher that has onegimmick - the killer makes his victims choose between two nastypunishments - that proves to be a lot less interesting than the you'dthink.Cue a plucky young journalist who uses the power of Google searching tosolve a series of local crimes that her father, a high-ranking policeofficer, inexplicably doesn't seem to give a toss about.The script has unintentional laugh-out-loud moments, and that's aboutthe best I can say about this gently steaming pile of tepid naffness.

Tony Heck 2012-04-05 15:52:04

A thriller that is a cross between "Saw" & "Untraceable" minus most of the tension. It is a pretty good movie though. I say B-

"Do what I say and you live. I'm going to kill your mother or yourfather. You have 60 seconds to decide, choose, or I kill them both."Journalism student Fiona (Winnick) becomes obsessed with the case of aserial killer. Her father (Pollak) tries to keep her away from the casehe is working on, but the further she delves the more she thinks thather mother's death is somehow connected to this case. This is a moviethat was pretty good, but had potential to be better. This movie seemedlike it tried to copy "Silence Of The Lambs" and "Untraceble" with"Saw" mixed in. It didn't really get close to the standards of thesemovies, but it is still a good attempt. The acting was pretty goodthough and that helped. I think the main problem with this movie isthat it didn't grab you with tension like a thriller should. It was OK,but had enough chances to be great and just never quite got there.Overall, "Saw" meets "Untraceable" with out the tension of either. AnOK movie, nothing that hasn't been tried before though. That said, Idid like it enough to say...I give it a B-.Would I watch again? - I don't think I would.*Also try - Scar & Untraceable

Terry Roehrig II 2012-04-04 04:07:22

'Choose' not to watch this....you'll be thanking me later.

This is one of those movies that I used to stock in my video storebecause it had a good story on the back and has great cover art. Lookslike it's going to be a really good movie, right? Right... but youreally shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, however that's what over80% of my customers did and a lot of people still do. I wouldn't helpmatters by almost always giving them false hope, they'd ask me, "How'sthis one?" and I'd have to lie and say I haven't seen it. Of course, Iseen it, it's crap, but I wasn't going to tell them that -- if I toldthem what I really thought about movies, I wouldn't get my return oninvestment. But now I've got my own website and I can tell everyonewhat I really do think about movies and this one is just under average.It's worth a viewing, why not... I've seen worse.The movie instantly grabs our attention by showing us some sick,demented psycho who has taken a family hostage. He's got the parentsall gagged and tied up by the time the young daughter reaches the topof the stairs. Once she discovers them, the psychopath makes herchoose: kill the mother or kill the father? She has 60 seconds todecide. If she can't choose which one should be murdered, then thekiller will off them both. After that ordeal is over (and yes, thingsdo get resolved) we meet our movie's heroine, Fiona Wagner (Winnick).She's in college studying journalism and her father, Tom (Pollak), isthe local sheriff. It seems more and more of these types of murders aregoing around and young Fiona wants to get involved, but father Tomforbids it. What are rules if not for breaking, right? After receivingsome creepy IMs and photos of the next murder, Fiona eventually goes toher father and they work on the mystery together. If you want to callit a mystery, that is. The movie chugs along pretty quickly after thefirst act and by the time we reach the final act, we're introduced toDoctor Ronald Pendleton (Dern in a 'what-the-hell-were-you-thinking'?role), a psychologist who just so happened to do a study on dun-dun-dunchoice psychology at a local juvenile detention. It all winds down to aconclusion that might leave you scratching your head at first, but itdoes make sense, it just makes you fit together one single piece of thepuzzle yourself at the end.The story isn't fresh at all. Jigsaw from the Saw franchise has alreadybeaten the dead horse to a bloody pulp when it comes to a 'make-your-decision' type of thrill ride. I have to admit that this killer did doit differently in that he personally stalked each victim and made themchoose, plus he had personal reasons for his actions, unlike Jigsaw whowas just an overseer and took it upon himself to right injustices. Thatstill doesn't change the fact that we've seen this done (several timesfrom the Saw franchise and several times from Saw knock-offs) beforeand lets face it, better. It also doesn't help matters that the policeforce is dumber than a sack of doorknobs when it comes to solving themystery of just who this guy is. After going through (literally) anentire box of VHS tapes with potential candidates forserial-killer-of-the-year, they come across (the very last) one thatjust has to be the killer. You don't think the good doctor thatconducted all of those taped interviews would remember something likethat when the police came to his house? How dumb do your charactershave to be in order for your screenplay to reach the resolution?Sorry...they may be that stupid, but you can't fool me. No one wouldforget an interview such as that one.The acting is mediocre at best. Kevin Pollak does what he can with theweak script as does Winnick, who plays his daughter. There is nothingspecial about any of the acting found in this movie whatsoever. Add insome dark cinematography that makes it difficult to see what's going onsome of the times and you're left with a hollow shell of a movie thattries (but fails miserably) to deliver any real scares or 'a-ha!'moments. Plus the ending on top of the ending was unnecessary. It triesto shock you with one final jolt, but after the first ending gave mythroat scoffing fits, I wasn't shocked or left in awe. It was more...aw, why did I watch this again? More reviews at www.soveryterry.comFinal Grade: D+

2012-04-03 09:19:16

Choose.......another movie

This is girlfriend\wife horror. 'Choose' plays nicely with limited blood and deprivation. So if you have to get it cause you want a horror you will do ok. It is really limited by its own boundries but overall not very good and you have probably seen it before (and better).

thelbronius 2012-03-31 22:06:26

Why! WHY! Did I choose to watch this!

Pros: Beautiful lead Cons: everything else...sigh Amateurish at best.Winnick's acting leaves a lot to be desired. Right from the beginningshe was irritating. She's better suited to being a nameless victim. Shejust kept missing opportunities to act. I think she's confused actinglike a bitch with every other emotion. This is the first time I've seena movie with her in it and I'm going to make sure to avoid any futuremovies starring her.The premise is interesting. But a premise is just that, a kernel of a agreat film. The rest is a collection of scenes that drag or wereborrowed/stolen from other films. There were scenes where I thought Iwas watching: Scream, Se7en, The Last House on the Left, Saw. The onlything chosen can claim to have in common with those films is thatpeople died. But! These people died and I didn't care! There wasn'ttime to care about these victims.The movie is all about style over substance. It suffers from phoned inacting, scenes that do nothing to move the plot forward, scenes thatdon't belong in the same movie, mediocrity. If a movies is going to bethis bad it had better be charming. If I hadn't watched it on Netflix Iwould have been really irked.Please do yourself a favor and just select a horror film that you'vealready seen and like. Much like Chosen, you've already seen it. Butyou can feel confident that you will at least like the movie.p.s. Kevin Pollack: Even you couldn't save this movie.

kosmasp 2012-03-30 10:50:03

Tough decisions

Is it clever writing or just another Saw rip-off? Is it disgusting ornecessary to move the story and the central idea forward? Can youstomach it or would you rather see a more philosophical approach to thewhole "choosing" game (psychologically it is interesting)? Can themovie do justice to the central idea or not? These are all legitimate questions, that have to be answered. But aswith other movies that are trying to ask those things, the answers willmostly be lying on your side and your taste. There is another questionthough too: Do you care or do you just want to bethrilled/scared/entertained? The viewers who wish the latter will takemore from the movie of course. But have to endure weak acting and aweak script.

Matt Kracht 2012-03-29 12:39:49

Sadly, Kevin Pollak isn't enough to save this movie.

If you're a Kevin Pollak junkie, like me, you're probably willing tosit through some cheesy movies, so that you can find the gems, like TheUsual Suspects. Unfortunately, this movie is nowhere near that good.Basically, it's a by-the-numbers serial killer movie, with elements ofSaw grafted on. I wasn't really expecting anything better than that, soI wasn't disappointed. Most of the performances were passable, and thedirection was alright. There was a little bit of gore, which was welldone, and a plot twist that worked well enough for the kind of moviethis is. So, should you watch this movie? If you've got nothing betterto do, and you can find it on a streaming service, like Netflix.Otherwise, pass.Too bad Kevin Pollak doesn't do standup any more.

2012-03-25 16:35:22

I GUESS I'M FREE TO GO.

The movie opens up with a young teen girl (played beautifully by Shana Dowdeswell)who has just discovered boys. She has really cool parents as she excitedly chats on her cell to her bff about a boy who looked at her and asked to copy her homework. You can't help but like her then suddenly she is thrust into a room where her parents are tied up by an intruder. The crazed man makes her choose which one of her parents must die, or the whole family dies. Her dad instructs her to choose him, which she does. The intruder also makes our teen do the killing. The next scene teases us with student reporter Fiona Wagner (Katheryn Winnick)heading for the shower. She is spooked and soon her father, a policeman (Kevin Pollak) is there to calm her down. Her mother was a suicide victim... or was she? She gets IM about her suicide. Other people in town are having to make sick choices...and in her suicide note her mother mentioned making a choice. The movie, which comes off as a whodunit, shows us a very "clear" silhouette of the mad man's face and we get to clearly hear his voice, although we never get introduced to his character. Meanwhile father and daughter are working separately on trying to solve the case where the killer's calling card is a maze left at the scene of the crime. Unfortunately the movie lacks giving us clues and the end comes off as a bit bizarre. Katheryn Winnick does her best to salvage a script that needed work. Kevin Pollack seemed to just be going through the motions. The "terror" of the movie is in the choices that people must make. The act of violence is not graphically shown, but rather we see the results. No sex, no nudity, rare f-bomb.

LangleyMcArol 2012-03-23 13:39:26

Couldn't sit through the whole thing.

Within the first 40 minutes, they stole almost shot for shot from thefirst three Scream movies. Layered with a Saw-like theme, and gore tomatch, I was not only bored, but insulted. If I could "Choose" again...I'd choose not to have attended the screening. Not even Kevin Pollockcould salvage this film for me. The dialogue was on the nose horrible.The acting was about as good as a bad day on any CW show (minusSupernatural). I normally don't criticize indie films, but I was soangry when I left the screening of this one, I couldn't stopcomplaining for several days to anyone who would listen. It's Scream1-3, meets Saw, meets Seven, meets... Unfortunately, even blatantlystealing from good films like those wasn't enough to save it. It wasjust plain insulting.

Jon Doe 2012-03-22 12:52:11

Not that bad, but could've been better.

I got my hands on this movie earlier and as usual cruised by IBMD tocheck out the reviews. After seeing the few reviews here I had not manyexpectations. I must admit I almost just deleted it, but knowing theIBMD rating system I decided to give it a whirl.All in all the movie started out with a wham and the first half reallyhad me quite intrigued with the storyline. The few 'notable' cameoswere also a treat. The acting was above par, direction and setting wason point too, and it even had style, For a minute there I though I hadhit pay dirt then I found the one place this movie was really lackingis it showed too much of its hand too early in the movie which made ita bit predictable. And being predictable isn't a good idea for amystery movie which is definitely what this movie tried to be. If theyonly could've added a few more characters or held some bit of info backthis might have been a great movie. Still, its far from horrible. Ijust wouldn't pay for it. I'd wait for it to come out on cable,torrent,etc.I give this a solid 6. I wish I could give it a 7, but its just notdeserving of a 7 so the final tally is: **Great acting, Great Cameos,Great Production, but kinda weak Script**