PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Femme fetales that are a bit out of touch with reality often make the best horror antagonists. Such is the case in Trivial, a 2024 independent horror release that asks the question: “What if a game show had no prizes, only deadly consequences?”
Trivial is written and directed by James L. Edwards (Her Name Was Christa 2020). It stars Edwards, Drew Fortier (Side Effects May Vary 2024), and Sasha Graham (Shriekshow 2022)
Graham steals every scene as Laurel, the aspiring game show host that uses her web series to extract revenge on toxic men. She ties them up in her makeshift studio and asks them trivia questions. If they answer correctly, they’re spared. If they answer wrong, they endure a strike which causes physical harm. After three strikes, they’re killed. As some of the questions become personal, we see these narcissistic archetypes begin to unveil more about themselves, which explains why they make the perfect contestants.
The gentlemen do a fine job with this decently paced script where each character has enough meat on their bones to gnaw through. But the shining star of Trivial is Graham, who chews the limited scenery in the best ways and wears her emotional breakdown all over her face. She manages to tow the line between organized host and charismatically unbalanced torture queen. Her mental deterioration is well captured, and it feels a bit like Pearl (read our review here).
The style in Trivial is quite interesting, as they shoot it partially like a web series game show, and then use wide shots to capture the “story inside a movie” shots. The editing also intersperses clips of the classic TV game shows that it’s paying homage to, to fit the current theme of discussion.
Each day plays as a new episode of the show, complete with a fresh victim to join the returning champion in peril. Parts of these scenes can go on a tad long or feel repetitive, so this might’ve been better served as an episodic series, or had each day trimmed a bit. But the material was good and the tension never ceased, so it still makes for quite an easy watch.
At the time of this writing, you can catch Trivial for free on Tubi.
