Play or Die

Play or Die is a 2019 Belgian horror film directed by Jacques Kluger. It adapts Franck Thilliez’s bestselling novel Puzzle. The story centers on Lucas, a young man who enters a game called Paranoia, which is used to commit a series of atrocities.

The plot begins with Lucas and his former partner Chloé reuniting after a year apart. Chloé invites him to play Paranoia, a game offering one million euros to the two players who complete it.

After solving puzzles and gathering clues, they are accepted and arrive at an abandoned hospital where the game takes place. There, they find several other players. A mysterious voice announces the rules but omits two hidden ones: nothing is real, and one player will die.

Lucas soon suspects the organizers intend to kill everyone, but Chloé disagrees. After the first test, they find a player’s corpse.

Frightened, they try to finish the game to survive. In another room, they discover another dead player and papers about Naomi, a former patient labeled dangerous. Chloé concludes Naomi is the murderer.

The final test sends them to the hospital church. Chloé realizes Lucas is actually the killer—a psychopath with memory loss. She tricks him into thinking the game is ending, climbs a ladder to the second floor, and pushes him off, then flees.

He finds and kills her. Later, Lucas “confronts” the murderer, overpowers him, and orders him to remove his mask. He sees his own face and understands he murdered his mother and orchestrated the game. He tells police the killer escaped.

The cast includes Charley Palmer Rothwell as Lucas, Koah Edwards as child Lucas, Igor van Dessel as teenager Lucas, Roxane Mesquida as Chloé, Marie Zabukovec as Naomi, Thomas Mustin as Jablowski, Daphné Huynh as Maxine, Hippolyte de Poucques as Ray, Caroline Donnelly as Lucas’ mother, and Helena and Laetitia Chambon as nurses.

The film premiered in the United States on 18 April 2019, and was released on VOD on 10 July 2019.