Welcome back to Movie Recapped.
Today I will show you an action, comedy, horror film from 2020, titled Triggered.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
Nine former high school friends reunite for a camping trip in the woods and do not expect
that a vengeful science teacher has planned a dreadful game for them.
The friends, all of whom are hiding dark secrets from each other, will have to turn against
each other in order to survive when there is only one thing sure; only one person will
get out of the woods alive.
The nine friends are sitting around a bonfire, talking and laughing.
They haven’t seen each other in a long time and although they can’t seem to agree on
whether or not spending a night in the woods was a good idea instead of spending it at
a cheap motel 30 miles away, they all seem happy to finally be together again.
Rian is the smartest in the group and was the valedictorian back in the day.
She is still with her high school boyfriend PJ, a rock drummer.
Popular boy Ezra and his girlfriend Cici are also still together but have a less steady
relationship.
Shae and Bobby are also still a couple, as are Amber and the brooding Kato.
Lastly, Erin is the wallflower of the group and a quiet girl.
Cici seems to be in a foul mood that night, is jumpy and even lies to get away from her
friends and drink in her tent.
While Cici is away, the rest of the group are discussing her behavior and Kato remembers
how vengeful she can be from high school.
When Amber, who is Cici’s best friend, approaches her and tries to figure out why she is so
snappy, Cici reveals that she thinks Ezra is cheating on her.
Meanwhile, Erin is not exactly jolly either because being back in the group reminds her
of her high school years and her unhappiest memories.
Her high school boyfriend Caleb had a heart condition and at one of Ezra’s parties,
he consumed too much speed and overdosed.
During high school, she also went out with Kato, who is not completely over her and does
not seem understanding of her situation.
The group is slowly trying to turn in for the night when Erin notices a mysterious figure
wandering in the woods.
She tries to run away from the man but he quickly catches up to her and knocks her out.
The nine friends awaken and find themselves wearing vests.
They realise they were gassed to stay asleep and now both the cars and Bobby are nowhere
to be found.
A hooded man emerges from the woods and is holding a gun.
All of them soon recognize him as their former high school science teacher and Caleb’s
father Mr Peterson.
He hasn’t taught the nine of them in a long time but he promises this will be their last
lesson.
As Rian tries to take the vest off of PJ, Mr Peterson assures them that the vests are
industrially made and will not come off.
Mr Peterson doesn’t clarify why he is doing what he is to those specific former students
but one thing is sure; after his son’s death and his wife’s suicide, he seeks revenge
from those who he says caused it all.
He only presses a button and automatically in the center of each vest a screen lights
up.
He announces that only one of the nine friends will get out of the woods alive and that will
be the person whose timer is higher.
After this, Mr Peterson turns the gunpoint to his mouth and shoots with no hesitation.
The eight of them are in shock by this turn of events but soon they all notice that the
screens on their vest now show a timer counting backwards.
Everyone has a different time on them and different lights representing how much time
they have.
Shae’s vest, having the largest amount of time, lights up blue while everyone else’s
is green.
Rian is sure that Bobby, whose idea was to reunite the high school group in the first
place, was the one that led them here in Mr Peterson’s bidding.
As the voice of reason, she also says that Mr Peterson must have driven a car to the
woods and therefore they should find the car and ride somewhere where they can call for
help and take the vests out.
The eight of them split up but Ezra lingers behind for a second and snatches Mr Peterson
empty gun.
As he walks around in the woods he stumbles on Bobby who had been tied up and chained
to a tree with his vest glowing red.
Erin still thinks that he was Mr Peterson’s accomplice but Shae insists that they should
let him go.
As the girls are arguing, Bobby breaks and admits that Peterson threatened him to bring
his friends to the woods.
Mr Peterson knew Bobby was secretly bisexual and had photos to prove that, which he threatened
to disclose if he didn’t do whatever he said.
However, before Bobby can explain more about the rules of the vile game Mr Peterson has
created, the timer on his chest runs out and an explosion blows him up.
In their terror, the eight friends split up.
As he is running in the woods, PJ’s vest lights up red, indicating that he has the
least amount of time amongst the eight of them.
He screams for his girlfriend’s name at the top of his lungs and when she finds him
PJ begs her for help.
After all, Rian is the smartest in the group and now PJ’s timer is showing only three
minutes.
PJ takes a leap backwards to protect his girlfriend
from the explosion but at that moment Shae
shows up behind him and he accidentally knocks her out with his torch.
Blood gushes from her scalp as she falls down and PJ and Rian watch in terror.
When Shae dies, the screen on her vest goes black and her time is added to PJ’s vest.
Now he is the one with the largest amount of time and his vest is glowing blue.
PJ is shaken by what he just did even though it was unintentional but Rian reminds him
that they have to meet the others.
When they find them and explain what happened they all realise that they have to steal each
other’s time by killing each other in order to stay alive.
The vest that is closer to the person who is killed gains the remaining time.
Each of them starts thinking of different ways to survive this game.
Rian still thinks is possible for all of them to survive this game if only they can get
some help.
Kato on the other hand is already aggressive and already sees that everyone is turning
against each other.
Lastly, Erin thinks it’s better if they just split up so that no one is tempted to
harm each other.
While all of them are discussing there is someone missing.
Cici is now the one whose vest is ‘triggered’ red with the least amount of time and she
is readying her weapon.
She runs straight towards Ezra since she would have the least regrets about killing him.
She feels betrayed by his infidelity and wants to take him out but for now, her aim misses.
The group scatters once again.
Ezra finds Erin alone in the woods with a proposition.
Everyone seems to have their teammates but them, and Ezra is desperate to have an ally.
He proposes they find the road so that they can get back to civilization.
Meanwhile, Rian and PJ are back in the tents and Rian is looking for a spare cellphone
she always packs with her when she goes out camping.
PJ also finds a pocketknife that might come in handy.
However, soon they notice Cici’s red light approaching and they hide.
Cici seems feral, stumbling around the forest looking for some way to prolong her life and
finds a kitchen knife someone had brought with them.
PJ is still looking for the cellphone and makes some noise with a broken zipper.
Cici turns around but gets distracted when she hears another couple somewhere in the
woods.
Thankfully, PJ is now holding the phone in his hand but it has no service.
He and Rian decide to get out of the woods where they can call for help.
After all, Rian’s father is a police officer and should be able to help.
Meanwhile, Cici is hiding in the woods and waits for the right opportunity to attack
Kato and Amber who are passing by.
She doesn’t want to kill her best friend so she stabs Kato on the thigh and gets on
top of him.
However, Kato is determined to get away alive, so he reveals Amber’s secret; that she is
the one with whom Ezra cheated on Cici.
Cici turns her attention to Amber now and at the last moment before being killed, Amber
reveals that she is pregnant.
Cici doesn’t believe her in the least and stabs her below the stomach.
Although the wound is deep, Amber still has the strength to draw the kitchen knife out
of her and slash Cici’s throat open.
Now Amber holds the blue vest and Erin is the new red one.
Everyone wearing a vest knows that someone has died but no explosion has been heard in
the woods, making it known that someone has started murdering their friends.
Surprised by what she is able to do Amber tells Kato that they are the only ones who
admit to themselves that they have to kill to win.
Therefore, their new plan is to kill everyone, gain everyone’s time and then find a way
to both escape alive.
In the meantime, once Rian gets some signal on the cellphone, she tries to call her father
who is persistently not picking up.
This alerts Rian who knows her father would always answer his phone, so she tracks his
phone, only to realise that he is only 400 yards away.
While Erin and Ezra are running in the woods they are the first ones to discover Rian’s
father tied up on a tree, wearing a vest like their own.
Mr Miller is drenched in blood and he reveals that Mr Peterson was seeking revenge on him
as well.
Mr Miller was the man that ruled Caleb’s death as natural but Mr Peterson remained
unconvinced.
He conducted further investigations and blood tests and discovered that on top of Caleb’s
heart condition that killed him in combination with substance abuse, he had consumed five
times the lethal dose of the drug that killed him.
This could only mean that someone had been drugging him the night of his death and Caleb’s
death was not just an overdose case but in fact a murder.
At the same moment, Kato finds Rian and PJ trying to find some signal in the woods.
At once the couple tries to run from him despite him saying that he is hurt in order to hide
his true intentions.
PJ who thinks Kato is not a threat wants to talk to him but when he sees him carrying
an axe, he realizes he has been fooled.
Kato says it’s nothing personal and that it’s not PJ that he hates but the game itself.
PJ tries to talk some reason into Kato but the fight is inevitable and when Kato tries
to smack PJ down with his axe, he ends up only sticking it to a wood trunk behind him.
After the axe is stuck there, Kato has to attack with his fists.
Thankfully, PJ still has his pocketknife with him and although Kato has completely broken
his hands, he is able to stab him on the foot and run away.
Before Rian can help her boyfriend Amber attacks her from behind her back.
One punch on Amber’s nose only makes her more infuriated but Rian had the time to get
away.
Meanwhile, Ezra and Erin are trying to carry Mr Miller back to the camp where there is
a first aid kit but he is badly hurt and bleeding uncontrollably.
Ezra has lost all hope of helping him and
is loading the gun he had picked from Mr Peterson’s
body, while Erin now hopelessly tries to contact 911 on Mr Miller’s phone before it completely
dies.
Erin tries to extract any last information from Mr Miller.
All he knows is that Peterson had two remote controls; one to activate the vests and one
to turn them off, which should probably still be on Peterson’s body.
By now Ezra is sure that Mr Miller’s time is wasted and, to get Erin off her ‘triggered’
red state, he shoots him, making sure Erin is the one closest to him.
Even though Erin is now the one with the most time, she is repulsed by how cold-blooded
Ezra has acted.
However, Ezra who now has the least time left in this game hands her the gun and advises
her to use it to survive.
He vanishes in the woods after announcing that he thinks he knows who murdered Caleb.
After being left alone, Erin meets PJ and Rian.
Rian is still searching for her father after tracking his phone.
Erin tells her that her father was not going to make it and that she just witnessed his
death.
Erin is completely shaken by this turn of events but knows that the time is running
out and the new information about the remote control that turns the vests off doesn’t
leave her time to grieve.
The three of them part ways.
When the couple is left alone to go back to the camp, PJ realizes that their time might
be running out once and for all, so he decides to propose to Rian.
Meanwhile Ezra, sure that Kato is the one that murdered Caleb is shouting his name in
the woods.
When the two of them meet, Ezra confronts him about his suspicions.
He says that Kato would have the most motives to kill Caleb because not only did he loath
him but he was also jealous that he was with Erin.
On the night of the party, he had ordered drugs and begged Ezra not to reveal this to
the police after Caleb’s death.
Kato never admits to these accusations and only blames Ezra for being equally vile since
he will only kill him to steal his time.
But this is not Ezra’s only purpose; he wants justice for what has been done and for
the reason why this whole game started in the first place.
He tries to take Kato down with the axe but is only able to create a deep wound on his
cheek.
For a moment Kato seems to surrender, only to make Ezra lower his guard.
He proclaims that he never killed Caleb and he slits Ezra’s throat open with a crowbar.
This only gives Kato a few seconds and now he is the one wearing the ‘triggered’
vest.
While Erin is looking for Ezra she finds Amber stumbling in the woods.
At first, she acts wounded to make Erin close up and then she gets on top of Erin to stab
her face with a knife.
Erin’s screams are heard throughout the woods and reach PJ who leaves Rian to come
to her aid.
When Erin escapes her grasp, Amber stabs the back of her thigh.
Thankfully this is when PJ shows up and is able to pick up the gin Ezra had given Erin.
He threatens Amber not to move and tells Erin to run back to the camp with Rian.
PJ struggles to even point the gun at Amber because he is the only one who has always
refused to play along in this game.
When Kato shows up to help his ally PJ tells them both to follow him to the camp where
they might have a chance of deactivating the vests with the remote control.
However, Kato does not like to take any chances and after all, he is the one with the least
amount of time.
He attacks him with the axe he has just killed Ezra with and PJ hardly fight back and rather
shouts for him to stop, reminding him that they are like brothers.
Kato acts remorseful for a second only to pick up the gun that is now lying near his
feet and shoots defenceless PJ right on the head.
Now that Kato has taken one friend out of the way and his timer is showing just over
a quarter of an hour, he finds it is time to turn to Amber too.
Greedily and unremorsefully he raises his axe and lands it on her now claiming the first
place.
Rian is running towards the camp, terrified since she is the one who is on red now.
She searches Peterson’s body and finds the remote control but when she presses it all
the vests simultaneously turn red and the timers are set to the lowest time.
Erin, who arrives at the camping spot at that moment, suggests pressing the button again
but Rian says it is too dangerous.
After all, Peterson seems to have accounted for everything and another press could mean
death to every player.
The girls run back to the woods to find PJ but instead find Kato who tells them both
PJ and Ezra are dead and he is not afraid to admit that he is the one that killed them.
Rian, desperate over her boyfriend’s loss, attacks and sticks a pocketknife on Kato’s
bicep.
After the girls have escaped in the woods a sudden realization hits Rian; even if they
both kill Kato, the time would not be enough to change the rules or find a way out of the
game by now.
She realizes that one of them has to die and she turns the gun to Erin’s head.
She doubts that Erin has told Rian the whole truth about how her father died and suspects
he didn’t simply bleed out.
Erin swears on her life that it was not her that killed Mr Miller but Ezra.
She even blames herself for the whole situation because she was the one who introduced the
whole group to Caleb.
This is when Rian breaks and admits that she was the one who killed Caleb because they
were both close to being valedictorians.
Rian, wanting to have the highest GPA in order to get a scholarship, decided to drug him
just enough so he could get disqualified after a drug test.
However, she messed up the dosage calculations and ended up accidentally killing him, so
she had to have her father cover it up.
In a moment of self-defiance, she recognizes that Erin deserves to survive the game more
than her, gives her the gun and gives her permission to kill her.
Erin however, doesn’t even have the time to think about that possibility, since Kato,
who has been eavesdropping in the background, attacks with a knife and punches it into Rian’s
eyeball.
Kato is shouting in triumph and picks up his axe, as Rian slides to Erin’s arms so that
she can die there and give her her remaining time.
Kato rages when she realizes Erin is now winning the game but he doesn’t think she is capable
of actually committing murder.
He tries to demean her, remind her that she was always the wallflower, a mute girl that
never stood up for herself.
The time is ticking and Erin realizes that she doesn’t have to kill Kato.
She only has to outlast him.
She shoots on both his knees and then watches him scream as he falls down in agony.
Kato cannot believe that he is defeated after how many people he has killed and even considers
killing himself right before his timer goes off and he explodes in pieces.
Erin’s timer stops.
Congratulations, it says.
The winner of the game screams for help.
All her friends – or enemies – are dead and she has survived.