Death Game

It's a bad movie from the 70s about killer lesbian hippies taking on the establishment. Sort of like a "Thelma & Louise" without any feminism. Both painful and compelling, the film had tense and giddy, while also wishing it would just end.

And then the end came and I was utterly baffled and amused. The final 10 seconds of the movie over, I blurted over and over, "What the hell was that?" I backed up, watched it again.

Then I forced my girlfriend (who had not seen the movie) to watch it.

"That is pretty weird," she said.

Pretty weird? It makes no sense at all! Wow! If you enjoy odd, bad film, I think you'll love this movie. Even when it's at its worst, it's fun. There's the 1970's moustache "wakka-chikka" aspect. Then there's the campy screaming semi-naked young women. And then there's the goofy, straight-faced, comical horror movie aspect.

Given the ending, I assume the people making this film knew they were joking. They had to know. Or else they thought the ending was deep. I don't know. But I am forced to admit that I really, really enjoyed this film a lot.

...Imagine this. On one dark, rainy night, two sexy young blonde girls show up on your doorstep, soaked to the skin. They feed you some sob story about being lost and, being the trusting gentleman that you are, you invite them in. Once inside, the flirtatious girls waste no time striping seductively to their underwear. One thing leads to another and before you know it, the three of you are in your hot tub.... This might sound like every red-blooded man's fantasy but the next morning things turn nasty. Those sweet girls turn "psycho girl" on you. They tie you up, slap on some freakish make-up and proceed to inflict their sickening mind games on you. Will you live to regret your night of three-way nookie? That is basically what this film is about. It is no masterpiece of drive-in cinema but well worth seeing if you enjoy those kinds of low-budget movies. Fans of Nikos Nikoladis' 'Singapore Sling' might also want to give this a look. Both films have the same basic premise and some might come to realise that 'Sling' is not so original after all. Although do not go expecting the same amount of sleaze as 'Sling'. Also, look out for one of the best 'what-the-hell' endings you will ever see.

A middle-aged husband and father left alone on his 40th birthday decides to celebrate it with two 20-year-old hitch-hikers he lets in his house on a stormy night. After a steamy, delirious three-way sex scene in a bathtub, the two girls claim that they are both underage and reveal themselves to be obviously psychotic as they destroy his house and torment him with increasing violence. You have to hand it to the movies. In real life it is almost always the older men abusing young women, but in movies like this of course it's always the opposite. Someone once described this as "a middle-aged male sex fantasy gone wrong". That seems like a pretty accurate description.

On the plus side the story is never COMPLETELY unbelievable, although if it had been based on true story, you definitely would have heard the story. The acting is good. Seymour Cassell is always good even if he's rarely the lead. Colleen Camp brightened up both small roles in many big-budget movies and larger roles in many low-budget movies in the '70's. She's good here as always and has a few surprising nude scenes. Even Sondra Locke is pretty good (ironically, years later Locke would sue ex-husband Clint Eastwood for ruining her career--well, this is the kind of stuff she was doing before she met him).

On the negative side this story is still pretty unbelievable. The antics of the two girls are often more annoying (for both the protagonist and the viewer) than truly frightening. There's some gratuitous animal cruelty (and delivery boy cruelty). Worst of all, is the song "Good Old Dad", which as annoying as it is, is ironically appropriate to the movie at least, but the filmmakers insist on playing it at length again and again and again. It reminded me of the similar Umberto Lenzi-Carroll Baker film "Paranoia" where the villains try to drive the heroine insane by playing one annoying song repeatedly, except that it's not part of the plot here--the filmmakers are doing it to the viewers. I wonder if there is a soundtrack to this movie available. If so it probably a double LP of this one song playing over and over and over. The movie also features one of the most ridiculous deus ex machina endings since "The Bad Seed" (and it is also surprisingly similar to the ending of the English-language version of "Paranoia"). And look what's written on the side of the truck in the last scene. I guess they didn't didn't think too much of that thing with the cat.

This film essentially begins with a man by the name of "George Manning" (Seymour Cassel) saying goodbye to his wife "Karen Manning" (Beth Brickell) as she goes to visit their son living in another state. That night two young women named "Agatha Jackson" (Sondra Locke) and "Donna" (Colleen Camp) appear on his doorstep totally drenched due to a thunderstorm and asking to use the telephone. Being a good person George allows them inside and even gives them some food and dry clothes while they wait for a friend to come and pick them up. What George doesn't know is that these two women aren't nearly as sweet and innocent as they pretend to be and soon he will regret ever meeting them. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started off rather well but then things took a turn for the worse with one extended scene continuing for what seemed like an eternity--and it became quite tedious from that point on. That being said, I have rated this movie accordingly.

This film should be put in a special category, "Movies that make you feel like you're on something." In this category would be Yellow Submarine, Eraserhead (or any Lynch film), Ken Russell's and Nic Roeg's and Jodorowsky's whole catalog, etc.

It is a bad movie, no doubt about it, and incomprehensible how it got made, or why, but that just makes it more fascinating. Thrill to the sight of Eastwood's then-girlfriend giving a truly unhinged performance and wonder if she's really acting or not! Listen to Colleen camp alternately scream and laugh hysterically as she beats up a tied-up guy in a bed and ponder how she ever got another acting gig again! Thrill to the sound of one of the weirdest choices of theme song ever recorded! Stare in awe at what appears to have been a cinemascope movie squeezed onto your t.v., and contemplate how much more dizzying it would've looked on the big screen! Feel this movie melting in your brains, not in your hands, as it gets ever more insane, leading up to a climax so stupefyingly cheap and abrupt it could only be attached to this movie!

Saw this as a kid on cable, watched it because it was rated R and promised nudity and sex. Got a *little* more than I bargained for, but wasn't displeased or even shocked (Fellini's Satyricon was on right before it--Lord, how I stayed out of a mental hospital is a miracle). If you like weird movies that simulate being on drugs this film is for you, at least if you have a taste for old, poorly done exploitation stuff.