The Lizzie Borden Game

Following the death of their parents, a group of friends decide to take a trip out to their house for a weekend getaway to understand what's going on, but the more they stay there, they come upon a weird game that summons the spirit of Lizzie Borden, who begins killing them one by one.

Overall, this was a fairly solid and enjoyable genre effort. Among the better elements present here is the strong setup that manages to bring together enough worthwhile factors into a serviceable feature. The gathering of the friends at the remote house to try to figure out what happened to her parents and find the supposed game that introduces them to the actual figure that sets them out on their interactions with the killer after playing it, which soon brings them into the path of the currently-revived killer's spirit, gives this a strong start. It makes the friend group rather fun and likable with the way they make fun and joke around with each other, seem genuinely concerned about their welfare, and are quite fun to be around. That sets the stage for this one to go through a solid enough series of hauntings and slashings involving the resurrected spirit running around killing off all it comes across. The general presentation is as a supernatural spirit, manipulating the world around it to avoid being seen until the last moment or powering others to carry on the fight for it, but it's still rooted firmly enough in traditional genre material to be worthwhile. The opening attack on the couple in the house or the stalking of the one couple who insisted on performing the summoning ceremony gives this a strong bit of stalking powers to go along with the frantic final half that brings about some great chasing and encounters throughout the house. With everything here offering up some exceptionally impressive and graphic practical kills to tie this all together, that's a lot to like here. This one does have a few minor drawbacks that bring it down. The main factor with this one is the sluggish and draining tempo that takes quite a while before it gets to the fun parts. The first half here spends far too much time on the group going through the house, trying to come to terms with the loss of their parents, or getting to know each other, so that it feels dragged out and draining before they play the game and release the spirit. That is the other issue where it makes no real sense from scene to scene, other than for the sake of what's going on, introducing ghostly zombie followers for no reason, acting like a physical being despite being a ghost in others, and offering no real consistency with what's going on. Coupled with an ending that has little that's sensible or logical, these come together to lower this one overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and Brief Nudity.

Lizzie Borden was an American woman who was tried and acquitted for the brutal murder of her father in stepmother in Massachusetts in 1892. A gruesome grizzly double homicide by axe which would make a good story....

...unfortunately not here in The Lizzie Borden Game.

Borden has been immortalised as a folk tale and legend in America, with a rhyme which goes:

Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.

Ryan Murphy is about to feature Lizzie in Season 4 of his Netflix series "Monster" and bring Borden to a much wider audience.

Unfortunately, this film will not do any of that. Here we have a group of friends who go to stay in a secluded castle for a "Friendsgiving" weekend. One of the girls who tags along, Emily (Airisa Durand), had her parents tragically murdered years before after she played The Lizzie Borden Game. This is essentially a game of Bloody Mary/Candyman where you say the rhyme into a mirror and she appears and you have to "close the portal" before she can start causing carnage. Naturally when she was younger, she didn't and her parents died....so I am not entirely sure why she would decide it was a good time to do it again whilst on this mini-break with her friends. At no point did she want to say "actually guys, ya know, the last time I did this, my parents died a horrible death so, maybe, erm....lets just watch a film instead!".

Naturally they summon Lizzie and they all start being hacked to death one by one in gruesome ways, all of which are done by Axe, so after the second one it starts to get a little tedious, despite each death being slightly different. One guy is chopped into two, another has her face flayed off as she thrashes around before having her hand lobbed off which continues to move, another is decapitated etc etc...and its all just very mediocre.

What didn't help was the GCSE Drama Class acting which had lines delivered with pure wooden-ness. When people start getting "scared", they just seem to stare off into the distance, eyes widened, thinking it's doing the job when all it's doing is really showing off the bad acting.

Throw in a small backstory too which has the most ridiculous conclusion, leading to a laughable ending which I would have laughed at if I wasn't half-asleep from everything that had come before it.

Ryan Murphy will do the legend of Lizzie Borden justice because Director/Writer/Producer Calvin Morie McCarthy certainly didn't bring anything to the table here.

I was highly entertained by The Lizzie Borden Game. I do love this indie film for it is horrific, humorous, heartfelt and truly visceral and gorey moments. The creepy scenes and comedic moments are my favorites. I really enjoyed getting to know the lead characters and caring for them as well as feeling empathy for the intro characters. The story unfolds in artistic direction with what feels like it was inspired by classic horror films when cinematography and practical effects help draw you into the world. It does so with said things as well as having a great music score and talented actors. I will be watching this film again. I highly recommend it, especially if you enjoy indie films and classic horror movies.