Thriller alongside craze for Pokemon Go
The invigorating new thriller Nerve, now playing in US theaters, goes deep into the psychology of the internet with an addictive game that's so fresh, you wonder whether the filmmakers had a tip that the Pokemon Go craze was on the horizon.
In the film, based on the 2012 Jeanne Ryan novel, Nerve is an app-based game that's all the rage among the kids. You can choose to be a "player" or a "watcher." Players are given dares by anonymous masses of watchers with the promise of cash prizes at the end of each dare, which they have to film themselves doing.
The dares can be as innocuous as kissing a stranger for five seconds, which is how Emma Roberts' square high school student Vee gets hooked up with Dave Franco's slightly older, slightly untrustworthy Ian. Or the dares can be as dangerous as dead-hanging off a high-rise.