20 Horror Movies That Were Way Too Cruel
2. Would You Rather
It's movies like this that make one feel grateful the torture horror film boom was so short-lived. Would You Rather is one of the ugliest American horror films of the century, without a shadow of a doubt.
It revolves around a woman named Iris (Brittany Snow), who ends up participating in a deadly game of 'Would You Rather?' in order to win money to fund her brother's cancer treatment. This was a terrific premise, and it is engaging at first, but after a while, the relentlessly painful games just become exhausting, making this a miserable viewing experience.
To make matters worse, once Iris wins the money (by murdering one of the other players, an act that absolutely destroys her) and gets home, one last uber-cruel plot twist reveals that her brother committed suicide before she left to play the game, meaning that it was all for nothing. Therefore, there wasn't even a point.
Often, it's important for extreme movies such as this to reward viewers for their endurance by provoking thought and giving them something to take away. To give some positive counter-examples, movies such as A Clockwork Orange, Irreversible, Natural Born Killers, and also the aforementioned The House That Jack Built (as excessive as that movie was at times) use their horrifying violence to say something meaningful. Here, there's nothing. There's no reward for viewers or the characters.