Jeux mortels

This is a pretty messy movie. I saw it on cable when I was young and new slashers appeared every week on cable. It appealed to me at the time because the character who played "Keegan" was spunky and interesting, and the premise was, if I understand it correctly (somehow hinging on a gay subtext...?) unique for its time. There was also little else to watch back then.

The story, such that it is, involves the murders of young women in a town, and the solving of those murders by the spirited Keegan, who has just moved there, and at least starts OUT as a character that isn't an empty-headed cliché.

But who can tell what's going on? This movie just flaps along, presenting one disjointed scene after another, and characters you're never encouraged to care about in scenes that fall flat and look drab and ugly. The presence of the dynamic and almost always insanely fun Steve Railsback (soon to appear in "The Devil's Rejects") is barely noticed. It all becomes dull as a white color crayon very quickly with no gore, no tension, no logic and no story to speak of. This is why God invented the fast forward button. Or better yet, the "Stop" button. Put in another movie--any other movie--and enjoy a good evening's entertainment.

I have a feeling this was cobbled together from the remains of several other movies somehow, like how Roger Corman's "Hollywood Blvd," which this resembles in a weird way, was assembled. I hadn't seen this for years, saw it for a buck on VHS and promptly recorded Scooby-Doo cartoons over it so it would have SOME value anyway...

I somehow thought this movie would turn out to be an undiscovered treasure, but no such luck! Visually murky and poorly plotted, this is basically an oh-so-familiar retread of "Halloween", though the director shows some talent and tries to surpass the limitations of the script. The lousy ending does not help. (*1/2)

While not a bad movie, the only memorable parts were the deaths and the ending. The bright spot, however, was Colleen Camp's performance. While not the best ever, it was nice to see that she was acting as well as she was. Unfortunately, the movie was confusing and a lot of it made no sense for a while and even until the end... that's what I get for falling asleep through it, huh? It was pretty boring...

After the death of a young lady in a quiet town, Keegan the sister of the victim shows up and gets tangled in the daily life of the town inhabitants. Soon there's another victim, and Keegan takes upon herself to figure out who the killer is while wooing with the cop who's on the case.

Aggravating! Here's another case where the video artwork does a good enough job selling what is a generically spineless and tedious slasher fare of the 80s, where it deserves to languish in obscurity. It's a mystery story at heart, but director Scott Mansfield looks like he was influenced by the slasher craze (with certain set-pieces) that formulated in this period to deliver an indistinguishable feature of too many spontaneous changes in its patchwork direction. This would go on to devoid the structure of tension.

What starts off amusingly decent (some lady stripping and fondling her breasts in the front doorway of her house?!), transcends in to a sluggish (if peculiar) melodrama of redundant sequences involving endless interactions (like a playing a board game, while sharing the good times with a trite sounding song accompanying) and vacant characters, only to be broken up by some tame and non-suspenseful killings. The two elements never entirely gel together. The premise is cluttered with predictable and perplexing details, which only made me yawn and look at the clock. The mystery/or the slasher side of the story is half-baked that when it comes to the reveal of our ski-masked, glove wearing killer it's quite unsatisfactory. That's if you've made it that far, but the ending is an unusual choice.

Not helping the slight story and turgid script, was that the visuals were poorly lit and cinematography looked dusky (however there are moments like the pointless football game that's extremely well shot). I thought maybe it was the video, but the lighting in certain scenes was non-existent, which leads to the assumption that it was due to the production's low-budget. Was this the case of trying to rally up mood and atmosphere? If that was so, it didn't always work despite the best efforts by director Mansfield. Were it seemed to pay off was the choice of some eerie, high-pitched sound effects and music score. These were well executed.

The performances are somewhat acceptable with leading actress Jo Ann Harris making head-way with her quick-witted attitude and sincere appeal, even with that somewhat squeaky voice. Colleen Camp is fine, Sam Groom is laughably unconvincing in his role and a disinterested Steven Railsback is pretty much wasted.

This mundane and diluted effort can only roll up a 2 on this dice and leaves you thinking maybe it should have discarded it's slasher strokes.

1982 slasher Deadly Games (not to be confused with the similarly titled '84 slasher Fatal Games) begins promisingly enough, getting its first scene of gratuitous female nudity in well before the opening credits have finished—that's got to be some kind of record. The topless beauty is then chased through her very dark house by a killer dressed in black (including regulation ski mask and gloves), before the woman falls through a window to her death on some rocks. So far so good.

Sadly, after this encouraging start, it's all downhill. The victim's sister, Keegan (Jo Ann Harris), turns up at the scene of the crime, and a more irritating character it would be hard to imagine: within minutes you'll be wishing it was her who took the face plant onto the rocks, the woman's goofy mannerisms and constant, supposedly amusing quips proving irritating in the extreme. And she is the main character for the next eighty minutes or so. Not so great.

The remainder of the film primarily consists of Keegan developing a relationship with married cop Roger Lane (Sam Groom) and a friendship with Roger's best buddy, oddball theatre owner Billy Owens (Steve Railsback), one of whom is obviously the killer. This leads to such exciting scenes as the threesome going to the park for a football game, watching an old movie at the theatre, and playing a board game (part of a montage that is accompanied by a lousy song), all of which has sod all to do with the plot.

After lots of pointless waffle, interspersed by a couple of random jump scares, a spot more nudity (during the obligatory sex scene), and a couple of bloodless murders, the film ends with a predictable chase through the darkened theatre, after which Keegan conveniently finds a gun and shoots the killer dead. Normally this would signal the end credits, but writer Scott Mansfield has another surprise up his sleeve, one that'll leave you wondering what the heck you just watched.