The Game

This movie had what sounded like a good premise: 9 people facing their fears to win one million dollars. Unfortunately, it did not turn out to be a good movie. There are several scenes that are way too long and really pointless like the dancing scene. A few scenes are just an excuse to point the camera at female body parts. The acting is bad, but some of the lines are amusing in their awfulness. What's really strange is that towards the end of the movie it turns into like a 5 minute western, and at the end, the twists, of which their were several, don't make sense with the rest of the movie. It seemed as though the director just added stuff on because he thought it would look cool, while conveniently ignoring the plot of the movie up to that point. It just didn't make a lot of sense. The only creepy thing was the old people dancing down the hall, but that doesn't even come close to making up for the rest of this mess.

Three bored millionaires gather nine people in an old mansion, and give them a proposition--if they can meet and conquer their biggest fears, they'll get one million dollars in cash.

All the reviews are correct -- this is one weirdo movie.

It's sort of like House on the Haunted Hill in terms of plot. But it's even weirder. The first whacko scene is a girl swimming in a chlorine filled fresh water indoor pool and what appears to be a shark starts following her!!!!! Only it looks as rubber as can be.

Crazy, right?

This movie was made on the cheap. The sound echos through out. It's very disjointed cutting from a whirlpool scene for example to some hippie singing combo. Many scenes don't even look like they are filmed in the same house or even the same location! And some of it appears to have been filmed at a cheapo hotel!!

There's one scene where a guy says he can't flush the toilet and suddenly the music goes all creepy for no reason whatsoever.

The movie is so bloody strange that I wish there was more information about it available. I'm not even sure the same actors are in it throughout!!! That's how bizarre it is.

There's also a girl in it who very strongly resembles Sarah Holcolmb who was Maggie in Caddyshack and then disappeared off the face of the earth!

Look for the guy in the sauna with the woody! It's that weird a movie. I also am pretty sure there is a former porn star or two cast in it. No nudity. Just a couple babes in bra and panties here and there.

And then there are the scenes peppered with silent movie music...why?

I was really hoping this movie would be bad-good but alas, I can't recommend it. It doesn't cross the line into camp. It's just weird.

Wow. What a lonely page. It seems to me like nobody has seen this stinker. Well, I suppose I should say something, after all, the great Bill Rebane put so much work into this, it would be a shame to not raise my hand and say, "Yes, I am a loser who will rent anything with a bloody woman on the box cover."

Nine characters (Geez, that's a lot now that I think about it) are invited to a mansion where three screwloose millionares run a game involving deep fears, with a prize of 1,000,000 dollars.

There's actually a strange similarity between this concept and the current reality-TV boom, but beyond that The Game is pieced together hackwork, although it is admittedly better than some or Rebane's other films such as The Giant Spider Invasion (which I suppose one could enjoy as a lark) or Invasion from Inner Earth (where red light represented alien life). The Game still has that feel of the producers just making a movie tailored to fit whatever props and settings they had at their disposal. Which in the case of this film, would include a cabin, the live rig from some motel lounge band, a prop gun, a card table, and a monster hand puppet.

During the last fifteen minutes the "plot" gives way entirely, and the whole thing almost turns freeform, with the folksy narrator admitting that even he doesn't know what's going on. To prevent being deluged by letters and E-mail from millions of fans about the meaning of it all, the movie concludes with no end credits. But hey, at least the movie ended.

Of the films of Bill Rebane, a clearly Z-grade director, this one has the most sway with me. First off, the concept is drawn directly from the classic flick House on Haunted Hill. Three millionaires bring a host of contestants to a resort to compete in "The Game", where their fears will be played against them and the last one standing will emerge with a cool mil. Story seems simple enough, right?

And that's where it gets complicated. The plot is extremely convoluted. Other than the three millionaires thing and a series of random scares, a lot of half-cocked theories get thrown around, some people may or may not have died, or just left out of boredom, and even inexplicably return... nobody is who they seems and some people reveal sinister intentions, but then again there are no plot points that really tell you whether these crazy twists are tied to the main story, or part of a secondary plot tied in with the main one. Even the narrator eventually admits to being bamboozled.

Now all that probably makes you say, "Well, I would hate this movie." Yes, perhaps from a traditional plot-driven perspective; but take a minute to consider this film in a different light.

From a strictly visual/aesthetic standpoint, this movie does have something to offer. It reminds me of my youth in the suburbs, where the carnival would come to town once a year. Like its obvious forerunner, House on Haunted Hill, The Game has a major connection to the carnival dark ride. If you ever went to a carnival you would remember one of these, where you took a rickety cart through a truck trailer full of plastic spooks and people in crappy ghost costumes. But when that ghost jumped out at you, it wasn't digital, it was in the real world. The thrill of surprise was there, and until you know what's grabbing you, all scares are equal. That ghost might be a carnival employee, or it might be your Uncle John's creepy friend from the shop you were scared of, overalls around his ankles, ready to bugger you. The smell of Old Spice and denim may have scarred you for life at that sad moment in 1987. I'm sorry, I have revealed too much.

But, despite glaring flaws, The Game is redeeming in its visual/film sleaze factor. Gritty grimy film stock, garish coloration, bad film music that I am pretty sure is some of the same as in Bloodsucking Freaks (high camp piano that sounds like a villain from a western), arguably the best "white folks dancing" scene in history(!), and great 70s/80s cusp bad haircuts. The acting is porno-caliber, and I kept wondering whether this was going to turn into a porno at some point, especially given my previous experience with such wacko 70's fare as Sex Seance and Horror Whore (AKA Hard Gore). There's an eye candy factor to the girls. Miss Shelley is cute. Her dingbat antics are hammy yet endearing; a big part of the flick's personality. Cindy is definitely a hottie. I would gladly have stood in a line to audition for the role of the puking hand puppet that came up through her mattress. I found myself wondering if they ever were in anything else, but I'll leave it to my fellow net-nerds to figure that out.

That said, it's not even C-grade acting, absolute crap for traditional production, but fun for a party flick for the crew to cackle about and awesome as stock footage or to make people wonder, WTF did that come from? What's 80 minutes of your life? Grab a nice beer and decide for yourself.

This is one strange hacked together film, you get the feeling that the bond company had to come in on this one, I'm not surprised there's no credits on it, who would want to be associated with this film. The Acting of all involved is terribly stilted and the plot jumps around all over, it all makes very little sense. As I said before it looks like the bond company had to come in because it seems like there was alot of footage that wasn't shot that needed to be, and all the music was very ill-fitting library music (cheap I guess). Very, very odd. I might actually buy a DVD of it though, if it could let me in on what the hell was going on, and what happened to this movie.