The unawareness of the characters was realistic

I agree. From the viewer's perspective we have music, cinematography, and editing to frame the situation as being sinister. But when you're having wine with old college friends there's really no reason to believe anything bad is going to happen (definitely not a mass murder-suicide).

Exactly.

The characters aren't hearing the ominous score. No one told them that they are in a thriller. They don't know that they're in a movie whose tagline is "There is no darkness. Only reunion."

I found the characters' reactions very believable. Also, I have been in many situations where in my head I was going "Holy cow!" but on the outside stayed placid and calm because I didn't want to escalate the emotions in the room.

If someone visited me, I would lock the door behind them . . . because I keep my house locked even when I'm there.

The only character actions I thought were stupid were actually actions that I found irresponsible--not ones that I thought would lead to death. For example, I thought that Gina asking to do coke was a crappy thing to do when she's in the presence of a recovering drug addict.

Maybe Will was the only one who could really sense that there was something sinister going on, that things around him made him more perceptive and sensitive:

1. He was going to meet his ex wife, the mother of his dead son.

2 He ran over and had to kill the wounded coyote, which reminded him of life and death.

3. He stepped through the door to his old house where he used to live and could feel his son's presence there.

I think he was the only one of them all that allowed himself to really feel. That way it was easy for him to see through the fake smiles and the games.
Even if he was locked in, he was on the outside looking in the whole time.





Never underestimate the power of diadara 

Agreed 100% they did a great job keeping the movie plausible. Both in making it apparent why the guests wouldn't be cautious and also in why will would be cautious. Well done

Totally agree, you're comfortable around old friends, you do and say stupid stuff and doesnt think much if others do the same. I don't understand people complaining about how the characters were clueless, it was completely believable to me.

That's a good point but I think the video of the woman dying should've made things apparent. After watching it when the hosts talked about "there's nothing to fear, don't fear your death" etc I immediately thought "it's a suicide party, they're going to serve poisoned food and then as everyone is dying they'll tell them not to fear death." The giveaway wasn't so much the video itself but how the hosts framed the takeaway (you shouldn't fear your own death). If they were only grieving their loved ones, why would they fear their own deaths? Bringing that into the picture made it extremely obvious (or maybe I'm just a more untrusting person than most?) and it should've at least made them suspicious.

This is what gets me with most of the facile threads on these boards. The characters have no idea they're in a horror movie. People don't naturally jump from "My friend (or ex-wife) who I haven't seen in two years due to personal trauma has suddenly decided to get in touch" to "Y'know, I bet she is planning on murdering me!"

I guarantee most people on these boards have been in far, far riskier situations (e.g. going out to a nightclub with a new group of mostly strangers, trying to fit in) but have just gone along with the social etiquette because they didn't want to embarrass themselves.

Same view mate, agree 100%

Seems there is a lot of experts saying they would have done stuff differently or picked up on it way quicker.

Context is always big factor...