Triggered

At its best, it’s self-aware in a way that’s reminiscent of the ‘90s slasher renaissance in films like “Scream” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

Once the outlandish premise is established, there's little to enjoy in the increasing body count, leading you to wish that Mr. Peterson had simply murdered his victims in their sleep. That at least would have made for a blessedly shorter movie.

Melding “Saw” with “The Hunger Games,” Triggered wins no points for originality or distinctiveness, not least of its cookie-cutter characters. But its relentlessness, and the gusto with which it embraces its mandate to make a mess, is tough to resist.

It’s not the worst movie in that Poe-Christie “kill off characters, one by one” formula. The players do well by their moments of terror or sadistic cruelty. But it’s entirely too obvious to come off, entirely too cluttered to have a character or characters rope us in, and entirely too chatty-jokey to ever be scary. And it’s not funny enough to work as a sick comedy.

Once you get past the faux-provocation of the film’s title, it’s difficult to tell what ideologies the filmmakers are trying to skewer.