Sometimes you watch a film and think, 'Yeah, I can see what they were going for.' It's just a pity they didn't pull it off. I like the idea of 'Death Count' - it tries to be a satirical social commentary on our addiction to 'likes' on social media. Eight people awake to find themselves prisoners in an online game where they must perform grisly tasks on themselves for the internet's amusement. The one who gets the least amount of 'likes' gets... well, it's a horror movie, so it's not good for the loser of each round.

The problem is it's dragged out too long. One plus side is that there's a decent amount of gore if that's all you're looking for. The budget means the gore isn't top notch, but if you're forgiving of the lack of finance behind the production then you may be okay on that one. However, it still doesn't take away from the fact that if you took the excessive bodily mutilation out of the film and trimmed it down by half, you could - sort of - be left with a lesser episode of 'Black Mirror.'

Michael Madsen is in it, too. Once upon a time that might be a selling point, but his character feels crowbarred in simply because he's the only face you'll recognise. He looks typically bored, but he's head and shoulders over the 'antagonist' of the piece. This mysterious masked figure oversees the goings on and he's bad. We know he's bad because he dressed like a bad guy (albeit one with a low budget for his wardrobe) and he talks like a bad guy. Every line he says comes from a 'super villain's handbook.' He really his quite painful to watch when he's on screen.

If you're going to get anything out of this you'll have to severely suspend your disbelief to go with it. The fact that this online 'show' seems to be known to the entire world, yet only the local police department seem to feel the need to investigate is a major plot drawback. If you're really in the mood for some low budget torture p**n then this might fill an hour and twenty five minutes if you can find it for free on a streaming service.

Awakening in a demented dungeon, a group of people find themselves chained in a cell and forced to endure a nightmarish game on social media to garner the most likes to earn their freedom, and the more they stay in the cell find a connection to their host that triggered the situation.

This was a pretty disappointing genre effort in the style. The main feature that works quite well here with the genre's standouts is the highly impressive and brutal gore featured here. The various traps and games that are played here where each of the characters are forced to undergo a series of self-mutilation and disfigurement to get their likes across serve this incredibly well with a plethora of brutal and incredibly vicious sequences. With characters having their heads explode, breaking out into sores from exposure to gas, chopping their fingers off, smashing hands with hammers, and other types of scenes throughout here, the bloodshed here is quite effective within here as the game takes place deeper into the film. This effectiveness and brutality are enough to raise this up quite enough despite being the only factor to like here. However, there are several issues here that really drag this down. The main issue here is the film's overall style and approach taking yet another stab at a derided and underwhelming genre with the whole setup of the internet game forcing people to mutilate themselves through torture. It's a setup that comes across as rather pedestrian and underwhelming from the very start, made all the more ridiculous with the laughably unimposing controller that takes one of the most ludicrous means of trying to seem threatening yet is quite problematic. That becomes even worse when the whole reasoning for their confinement and the forced nature of their game just provides a laughably underwhelming and disconnected feel that gives everything one of the least reasonable means for torturing others in the genre which is rather distressing. Combined with an ineffective and inept police investigation that speaks to its low-budget roots with how it zips by the normal means of an investigation, these all manage to hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and Brief Nudity.

All you really have to know to rate this movie is that it has Michael Madsen in it. He's one of those actors who fell into the abyss and will be in anything that he can get a paycheck for. That said, he's usually the best actor in the cast, and that's no exception here. Nonetheless, the main female character isn't bad, and I could see her doing something of a more serious nature. 'The warden' performs acceptably as well. Most of the others are comically bad, but that adds to the entertainment value of the film, as does the gore.

This is not high art, but it provides enough gore to keep it entertaining for fans of gore horror (of which I am one). I've seen other movies of this genre that try to concentrate on storytelling, and they are miserable failures.

So go into this with expectations of what a movie titled 'Death Count' would be, and you likely won't find it a complete waste of time. I've seen far worse.