The Last Wish
2018 · 7m · Sweden
Directed by Jarno Lee Vinsencius
Genres: horror, mystery, thriller
Two people wake tied up in a cellar and realize they are part of an elaborate, diabolic game of life and death.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Saw-meets-parlor-game setup that's been done to death—the real subversion would've been if they *didn't* wake up in a cellar, but Vinsencius plays it straight, which feels like a missed opportunity for actual transgression.
Competent execution of the torture-game genre, though it treads well-worn formal ground; the film understands its lineage in SAW and CUBE but doesn't quite find its own syntax within that tradition.
The revelation that these strangers share an unexpected connection reframes the power dynamic entirely—it's a single narrative swerve that transforms what could've been anonymous suffering into something intimate and purposeful, and that choice makes the whole engine run.