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So every two weeks, I donate platelets, and I get to watch something on streaming. This time I chose to watch Play Dead on Tubi TV because I like Horror movies and Jerry O’Connell films.
I don’t know who regretted my decision more to watch it there and not at home, me or the phlebotomists. Why? Because I spent most of the movie squirming in my chair, and they were afraid that something was wrong with me.
Why did Play Dead have me moving my legs (we can’t move our arms when we donate) like crazy?
Chloe (Bailee Madison) is studying Forensics Studies at school, so she knows how to commit the perfect crime, unlike her brother, TJ (Anthony Turpel), and her ex-boyfriend, Ross (Chris Lee).
The two of them decide to rob a dispensary, and Ross gets shot by the owner and is presumed dead. TJ flees the scene and runs home to his sister. Since her brother is all she has left after her mother died from cancer and her dad committed suicide, she is going to do everything in her power to protect him.
That means playing dead so that she can be taken to the morgue to get Ross’ phone back from evidence because they planned the crime on their phones.
When she gets there, she realizes that it is not going to be as easy as she thought. The coroner (O’Connell) is a psychopath who is secretly harvesting organs for money.
When he discovers that Chloe is alive in his morgue, he is going to make sure she is dead for real. However, she is going to do everything she can to survive the night. Who is going to win the cat and mouse chase? You know I can’t tell you.
What I can tell you is the scenes where the coroner is performing autopsies are so realistic that just thinking about them now is making me cringe. Unlike Terrifer 2, they are not gratuitous and make sense. But that doesn’t mean they still didn’t scare me any less as the sound of the saw cutting through flesh and bone buzzed in my earphones.
All of this was happening as O’Connell kept a straight face with no emotion. He is as cold as the corpses he is working on. That is what made it more terrifying. The actor who has made me laugh in movies like Joe’s Apartment and Kangaroo Jack was making me shudder in fear with the lights on. Who knew he had this in him? But he obviously does. It’s a side of him that blew me away.
He is not the only one who did that; so did Bailee Madison. The sweet child star is now an adult and acting like one. Her fear resonated with me, and I could feel it as I watched her trying to find a way to escape the clutches of the coroner. I always knew she was a great actress, and this movie proved it. She truly is one to watch.
While I highly suggest watching this movie if you want a suspenseful thriller, I just don’t recommend watching it if you are donating platelets. And you should donate platelets! Maybe if more people did that, the coroner would not have so many victims to perform autopsies on.
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