The Game

It's possible you've seen this movie and didn't even know it!! How exciting is that!? Mill Creek Entertainment released a 50 movie pack last year (2005) Called Chilling Classics that includes this very movie in the collection. Only it's not titled The Game. No sir. It's titled The Cold Why did they change it? I am thinking maybe the were afraid of getting sued by Hasbro or some other game manufacturer. Either that or the print they had didn't have the title so they made something up.

Anyways, I liked the flick. People meet in a mansion to face their fears, and if they survive they get $1,000,000. It was better than some and not as good as others, but it did have a few creepy scenes. Like the guy right at the beginning. If I was him I'd be like. "EXCUSE ME! WAITER. There's a spider in my soup. There's plenty of chicks in this movie that remind me of 70's porn stars. That is, they aren't very good looking, and they aren't afraid to wear a buttload of make-up. Also one of them has a Wisconsin accent, so that always a turn-on. Eh?

The movie tries to be sort of a horror version of The Sting I guess, because the film makers want you to wonder what is going on right up until the end....Either that or the movie is just so crapily made i didn't know what what was going on until the end. In any case I give it a 5 out of 10... mainly for Wisconsin accent lady.

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.

Well this was certainly a weird little film. Very low budget, very bad actors, very 80's...very strange!

The plot is basically just a confusing rehash of House on Haunted Hill. 3 eccentric millionaires invite a group of people to stay at their mansion to face their greatest fears. The last one gets a million dollars. Pretty straight forward, but they still manage to make it a jumbled, confusing mess. At one point near the end, the narrator even admits he doesn't have a clue what's happening!

The actors are exactly what you'd expect to see in a low budget 80's horror flick, which is to say that they couldn't act their way out of a wet paper bag. They do have some amusing lines, including the best pick-up line ever "I had a vasectomy!".

Really though, this isn't an awful film considering. It's interesting to watch, because you really have no idea what's going to happen from one scene to the next. Really odd and poorly made film, but still entertaining in it's own way.

5.5/10

A real head scratcher of a film by Bill Rebane who appeared to be getting worse in his trade throughout the eighties. Three crackpot millionaires invite nine people to a remote hotel to compete in a last person standing contest in which the final contestant will be given $1 million provided he or she makes it that far. A series of lame pranks are pulled on some of the guests while the others engage in what most adults would do under the circumstances namely get shatfaced at the hotel bar. Most scenes are merely an excuse to focus the camera on various female body parts including an opening dance number that is a crossover of American Bandstand meets geriatric aerobics complete with hookers. If there was any hesitation that white people can't dance this scene hammers the final nail in that coffin. Pay close attention for the nipple slip. This continues on for about forty-five minutes until Bill Rebane begins throwing darts at various plot twists and whatever he hits becomes the inspiration for the next scene making this one incoherent mess. It's a game until it's not a game. The three old coots are in complete control until they're not. The hotel is possessed by a supernatural force until it becomes just props. They're dead until they're not. Even the narrator at the end replies that he doesn't know what the hell happened. I defy anyone to reason where Rebane was going on this one. The acting is dinner theater caliber minus the dinner. Most of the actors probably went back to their day jobs at the local Stuckey's. I give it a few points for the scene where the yuppie broad opens the closet and a skeleton is inside skull humping himself. Let's see Gone With the Wind do that! This Chilling Classics collection is really becoming the bane of me. Bane, Get it! Like Rebane! I hate myself.

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.