A reclusive young woman discovers an online web community that promises to kill anyone who asks, but soon learns that if she does follow through, everyone around her is in danger.

Maximilian von Vier’s indie film, Suicide Club, is Sion Sono’s J-horror classic of the same name meeting something like Room (2015). This cyber-heavy, arthouse horror was full of mystery and suspense, as well as a compelling female lead driving its heavy subject. The UK film has picked up numerous awards since its 2017 release, including Best Feature at the 2017 Open World Toronto Film Festival as well as multiple awards for its jarring, techno score from Hilgrove Kenrick

Suicide Club follows Eliza (Klariza Clayton), an agoraphobe living in a large apartment complex. Eliza spends her time playing video games, spying on her loud and suspicious neighbors, as well as attempting suicide here and there. After another failed attempt, Eliza seeks direction from the suicide forum that she frequents and learns about a dark web cult called the Suicide Club — a club that guarantees death. After stumbling upon their page and answering all of their questions, Eliza is eventually notified that she is in the club, which grants her access to what seem to be legitimate suicide videos. Taking a break to spy on her neighbors, Eliza notices a handsome new neighbor moving in, whom she quickly locates on the local dating site. As the two chat and become closer, Eliza finds herself also being pulled into the dark web club, which has begun asking her to nominate someone for death — she must kill, or be killed. Instead of offering up herself, Eliza begins nominating her social foes, but as she begins to push against the club’s death grip on her life, Eliza finds that sacrifices will have to be made in order to put a stop to this death club once and for all.

Suicide Club sets out to show how trauma leads to the inability to connect, and the effect of the internet filling in those social gaps. Though Suicide Club (2017) has been awarded at quite a few film festivals, I felt the film missed the mark on capturing the cultism of a suicide fad catching on, and therefore, it is not as horrific or eerie as it could be. I was looking for a true descent into darkly emotional places and into the dark web itself, but by the end it is very clear that the film was to do an about-face away from isolation and the dark depression of suicide, opting for a relatively candy-coated message that cleaned everything up just a little too nicely. For a film about suicide, it seemed to shy away from death, with no sound during suicides, little emotive reflection or reaction, and only a few drops of blood for all of the death going on. Having that said, the film was done at a good pace with little lulls, it looks good quality-wise, and there were solid performances from every actor in its cast.

Suicide Club is set in an apartment that has every window covered and a door that doesn’t open, which cultivated a claustrophobia-inducing atmosphere that was further helped by its very dim lighting and emo paintings. The premise, going in, felt unique, and that was largely thanks to the set design as well as Klariza Clayton in the starring role of Eliza “Liz”. For the first act of the movie, the audience only hears Liz speaking with herself, and she plays reclusive and depressing well with nailbiting anxiety and ‘Rear Window‘ spying tendencies. Her depression seems surprisingly alleviated by the entrance of Josh, played by Adam Newington who stars alongside her and provides an everyday good guy kind of vibe to his character, though the narrative forces him into unrealistic behaviors such as accepting that he has a stalker all too well. The actors did well with the script they were given and had good chemistry together, it’s just the premise doesn’t delve deep into depression and so the narrative stays in the shallow end without providing many thrills or psychological exploration along the way.

Maximilian von Vier’s Suicide Club seems to inadvertently be a European version of the J-horror cult classic Sucide Club (2001). If you haven’t seen the J-horror movie you have a good chance of enjoying this film, but if you have seen Sono’s 2001 violent-youth classic, you might be disappointed. Suicide Club (2017) has no memorable scenes visually or emotionally, it is light on violence and gore for a film about a suicide club, and the film only lightly broached the emotional aspect of someone being suicidal. Being mostly set within one apartment and the audience spending the first 1/3 of the film with only the main character’s perspective, however, made for an interesting watch, despite it falling into being that predictable ‘girl meets boy who saves her from herself’. To catch Suicide Club, it is available via video on demand and through Amazon Prime Video thanks to Wild Eye Releasing.