All atmosphere, few thrills

Choose or Die (16, 85 mins) Directed by Toby Meakins Reviewed by James Croot ★★1 ⁄2

British horror’s latest effort to bring back the 1980s is something of a mixed bag. Vicious Fun and, most notably, Censor successfully evoked the era of the ‘‘video nasty’’, Toby Meakins’ feature debut gets a little lost in resurrecting the age when Commodore 64s and ZX Spectrums were all the rage.

In a kind of Tron-meets-Ringu by way of Jumanji: The Next Level, the plot revolves around a computer game that seemingly has the ability to manipulate reality.

We first encounter Curs>r in the man cave of the 80s-obsessed Hal (Eddie Marsan). After waiting an eternity for it to load via cassette, The Hobbit-esque role-playinggame’s initial questions seem benign – if a little creepy.

Unnerved by the magical appearance of a second beer, Hal is full-on frightened when it asks him whether the ongoing arguments between his son and wife should be solved by ‘‘his tongue’’ or ‘‘her ears’’. Confusion turns to panic as the computer’s audio screech reaches fever pitch, accompanied by the repeated demand to ‘‘Choose or Die’’. Seconds later Hal’s wife cuts out his son’s tongue.

As the game now cheerfully suggests he come back at the ‘‘same time tomorrow, for more terror’’, it does offer him an out – making and distributing copies of the game.

Months later, one of these attracts the curiosity of Kayla Edwards (Iola Evans). Spying it in the in-pile of character designer Isaac (Asa Butterfield), she is intrigued by its surely long-dead promise of a $125,000 grand prize and dedicated phone line, complete with answering message recorded by ‘‘horror royalty and Hollywood nightmare’’ Robert Englund.

Agreeing to investigate further together, the pair arrange a 1.30am ‘‘date’’ at a local diner. However, before the notoriously forgetful Isaac can make it there, Kayla has already tested it out, resulting in the terrifying demise of a waitress seemingly compelled by ‘‘the game’’ to clean up a series of broken glasses by eating shards.

With Kayla already on edge due to her family having seen its fair share of tragedy, it’s up to Isaac to reassure her – something he spectacularly fails to do. ‘‘Pac-Man doesn’t go around eating people,’’ he attempts to reason, words that over the next few nights he will come to deeply regret.

Despite some extremely effective sound design and a delightfully demented premise, Choose or Die just isn’t quite as much fun or fright-filled as one feels it should have been. Sure there are a couple of genuine jumps and a few 8-bit-inspired joys, but a confused and convoluted backstory, over-the-top finale, strange Unbreakable-style character development and a weird potential sequel setup are significant detractions. With its encrypted evil, animated scenes and wasted use of Englund, it all ends up feeling like one of the lesser Nightmare on Elm Streets.

Choose or Die is now available to stream on Netflix.