Hello Stranger review – interactive thriller lacks cinematic bite

A lonely home worker is forced into a series of deadly games by a masked online sadist in this choose your own adventure – but bouts of paper-scissor-stones fail to engageInteractive cinema cheerleader Paul Raschid’s last work The Gallery in 2022, cannily used the format to compare and contrast two fraught eras: Thatcher’s and post-Brexit Britain. So it’s a disappointment to see his latest outing, Hello Stranger, narrow its scope to a cheesy trial-by-internet that lacks the social commentary of Squid Game, from which it nabs its masked, filtered-voice tormentor.Cam (George Blagden) is a shut-in working on assorted remote assignments from a hermetically sealed, computer-controlled London apartment. His main companion is Sasha, the digital assistant that runs his life (voiced by either Derek Jacobi or Yasmin Finney). Depending on whether you opt for being in a couple or single at the appropriate fork, hypothetical American girlfriend Mimi (Christina Wolfe) or neglected young brother Alfie (Danny Griffin) are the significant humans Cam is keeping neurotically at arm’s length. He prefers the company of online randomers plucked from a Chatroulette-style app called Hello Stranger that fatefully serves him up an anonymous sadist who locks him into his flat and forces him to play three games. Continue reading...

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