Reindeer Games

So "Reindeer Games" is actually one of the few decent independent films I've seen. You have to remember: This comment is coming from a guy who despises Kevin Smith for wasting my time with every movie he releases. I fear I'll never learn my lesson with that guy (but I just have so much hope in my heart.) Reindeer Games is nothing like the Affleck version (which is utterly disgusting.) It's about this guy named Alec who works at a restaurant in downtown Portland, Maine. He accumulates a crush on a co-worker and manages to finally land a date with her.

After the date she makes it clear that she never wants to see him outside of work again, so he does the only logical thing: knocks her out and locks her up in his basement.

There are suspenseful moments--but in that independent film kind of way. The chief of police for Portland (Mike Chitwood) makes a cameo on the end. Not bad considering he violentfied the entire police force--it only makes sense to have him appear in a violent movie like this.

There is one shot they did that I still can't figure out (it appears more vividly in the trailer--where a shadow looms over a chair in the foreground. Anyway, that's about it.

-EE

Just rented this from Hollywood video today and i have to say I'm semi-impressed. The opening trailers on the DVD had me worried. They were TERRIBLE. But i can honestly say had this film been on TV i would have watched it. Sadly i payed money for it... not sure if it's worth that. I REALLY wanted to smack the creators of the DVD cover (although i should shake their hands they were doing their jobs) I fell for the PROJECT GREENLIGHT tag attached to the film. That's what i get for not doing my homework before renting this. I thought THIS was the horror film which project green-light was working on and thus the reason why i rented it. Only later did i realize that it was just running off Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle's "Battle of Shaker Heights" (a MUCH better movie). Silly girl. I should have known not to take it when the title "A Cult CLASSIC" was proudly displayed. And had I taken a moment to USE my college degree and actually decipher the coded quote from ABC News on the back i might have put the film back completely. "... makes silence of the lambs seem like breakfast at tiffany's". First off, and ellipses at the beginning of ANY quote only means that the writer had something else to say, but the editor decided it would either a)not be important or b)not work for their purpose. My guess after watching this, the ABC News reviewer was saying that this film made Silence of the Lambs look like a classic (which it is, so really that's redundant). I'm really not trying to bash this film, it was a great first effort and there are things about it which are great. Kyle's performance as Alec Clark is quite good. Mary Skinner is great, even if she did sorta come off like a cross between Charlize Theron and Ashley Judd, but hey what's wrong with that? It was just some of the lines and the overall feeling of boredom which kinda made me wish i had just stumbled onto this on cable one lonely night.

My only question....

Why is Hollywood Video renting this as a film called The Girl in the Basement? No one owns a title of a film. I can call my film Casablanca if i want, so why change the name from Reindeer Games to that, unless you're worried about it getting mixed up with that horrible Charlize Theron, Ben Affleck piece of junk. (hmmm Kyle looks a lot like Affleck, and Mary looks a hell of a lot like CHarlize... crazy). If I were them i would have left it, or at least contacted IMDb some how and let the know that the film has a new title.

To wrap up, not a bad film, not a good film. I give it a solid 4 out of 10

Compared with the big-budget Ben Affleck flick of the same name four years later this offers per dollar, way better value. Rough around the edges perhaps, but still a "worth seeing" little item.

Kyle Rankin is Alec Clark..."Mr extreme average" who loses the plot of his own life and finds it necessary to vent his frustrations (and/or perceived lack of manhood) on a young girl Kate Regan (played by Mary Skinner) who he sees fit to relocate, fully tied up, in his own basement. Kate has a problem.

Acting and direction are above average for the budget constraints here and you could do far worse than watch this one night.

I rented this film from my local video store and was surprised that it was even picked up for release. It is evident that the ONLY reason it is out there is because the two jokes from Project Greenlight made it. I guess when it became obvious that nothing would come of their future works, they decided to cash in on their past works. Very poorly acted, particularly by Kyle, who insisted on putting himself in most of the earlier works. After having seen him in this and in Pennyweight, I personally think that he should never act again. I do like the spirit of independent film, but I also think there is a difference between independent and amateur, and this film comes off as the latter. I found the plot to be unintriguing and at times to be well above the skills and budget the filmmakers had to work with. The blind date sequences stand out as particularly bad and cumbersome and far tool long. Overall I feel like a distribution company new that they could repackage it with the words Project Greenlight and get people to rent it, they should have watched it first and had some integrity.

I am torn on this movie. You have to look at this movie from 2 point of view. The first point of view is the view of every one in the entire world, meaning your average person that is going to watch a movie.

From the every one point of view i described above this movie is a big stinky pile of horse crap, steaming up steam clouds of bad acting and poor filming. Most of these types of people never made it though the movie. Im not bashing this group, i am in this group HALF of the time.

Then the next group of people are the types of people that are in to these types of movies, little budget, independent films that the little guys make. You can tell them from a mile away by the picture on the box and the description on the back.

IF can look at this movie from the second groups point of view, this movie is really not that bad at all. If you compare this movie to 50 other independent movies of this type it stands out from the crowd in plot and acting.

Now looking at this movie from both point of views? my only big problem is the guy that hassles the main guy at work, he was so over the top stupid and really had a huge part in making this movie bad.

If your the actor that hassled the dish washer and your reading this for some reason, YOUR the main reason this movie was corny, and bad.