Nerve

Nerve is another of those films that I have thankfully been able to avoid any real information about.

On a first glance of the plot, it seemed to be some sort of combination of the Indie Horror Cheap Thrills and the Underwhelming Block Buster Gamer.

But it features the youthful cast of the future! Like Emma Roberts, straight out of Scream Queens! And Dave Franco, straight out of, I dunno, Neighbors and some James Franco pet project probably.

Sex Sells!

Nerve is a real life, 24 hour game that is invite only, super popular, but also secretive. It takes place in a big city and people can sign up in the city to be a Player or a Watcher. Also people outside of the city can be a watcher as well. It costs a fee to be a watcher, but then you can watch the players compete dares over a 24 hour period, earning cash prizes, doing stunts, getting sexy and who knows what else. The Player has to record the dares with their phones for them to count, and if they bail or fail a dare in the time limit, they are out of the competition.

After 24 hours, the two highest players in terms of viewers get to go to the finals and the winner will become super famous and decently wealthy. It is also completely anonymous for the watchers and no real one person is in control. And now the game has hit New York City.

Vee (Emma Roberts) is not an outgoing individual. She takes pictures and hides in the background. But when her best friend, Sydney (Emily Meade) embarrasses her in front of a crush (Brian Marc), she decides to finally live a little and screw it, time to be a player.

So she does one dare. And she brings along Tommy (Miles Heizer), her guy friend who clearly crushes hardcore on her. She just has to prove herself. But then she meets Ian (Dave Franco), someone who ends up being another player. And the dares get them closer together, so sure, why not, he is cute, why not hang out with him and earn some more money. Strangers aren’t really scary in real life.

Juliette Lewis plays Vee’s mom, Machine Gun Kelly another player, and Kimiko Glenn and Marc John Jefferies as two more friends of Sydney.

Don’t worry, they get to kiss before they take their clothes off.

Nerve was directed by the people who did Catfish and a couple terrible Paranormal Activity Films. So they have both experience with creepy things and technology, so in this film they wanted to bring it a bit together.

Early in the film, it felt a lot like Unfriended as our entire point of view if Vee’s computer screen, which lasts only a few minutes. And a lot of recent films that incorporate texting and technology into the movie to show the always connected parts of life have tended to feel tacky, but it really works in this movie. It feels unique with its cinematography and for the most part throughout the film it was a nice ride to be on.

The biggest problem with the movie just was the ending to me. It felt like a cop out, the plan was a bit silly and everything seemed to work out to well. The entire film ramps up quickly near the end, getting far too ahead of itself. Before the end, I thought this would make a decent franchise with a lot of potential, but the ending ruins even that for me. Also, for whatever reason, halfway through we find out that if they ever fail or bail on a dare, they lose all the money they earned. Which uhh, makes the fact that they earn money for tasks seem kind of pointless and makes absolutely no sense.

On another note, which will totally date this review in the future, it reminded me of Pokemon Go. At the time of writing, the game is only three weeks old. It became a phenomenon and now everywhere you can see people out and about, glued to their phone and playing it. And in the movie, there are tons of watchers, racing around NYC, with their phones out to film the players on their dares and see them in person. Before Pokemon Go it would have seemed silly and made the whole movie feel unbelievable. But now, hell, it is really easy to see this type of thing blow up and get popular. Nerve picked a really fucking good time come out, go figur.

Nerve is interesting, has a disappointing finale, and yet, I still kind of want some more.