Game of Death

A bunch of youngsters play a mysterious game in which u either have to kill a person every one hour or the player's head will explode. Nothing new here. Even the kills aint inventive. When it comes to the screenplay, nothing new. At least the makers shud have focused on creating some tension or suspense. Apart from the watermelons exploding scenes n some pretty faces, this film is a total time waster. It has some lousy shaky cam stuff n pov shot scenes.

Medicore film of obnoxious teens who find a game and then have to kill people or else they die. Tries to bring some ethical and moral aspects to the situation, but given the plastic and superficial nature of the characters, the moral aspects of the film fall flat. Excessive gore in the beginning, sexual behavior that is pointless, and then other odd elements that bring nothing to the script. Ho hum.

The good: the director has influences that are evident, sporadically. Carpenter, King and Cameron maybe even some Tarantino type style can be seen here and there. Mixed with some animation that makes for humor, intentional or not. The bad: the script is horrible. The acting is sub to the point that you wonder if that is intentional too. The idea has been done before with most horror movies involving youth. There's a message to be unpacked, but the delivery of the movie is so bad...do you want to unpack it?

Make no mistake, the plot for "Game of Death" is nonsensical, implausible and even downright imbecilic. On the other hand, it's also the most original, refreshing and straightforwardly efficient plot for a gory horror flick that I've seen in a few years. Lately, I admit, I've been whining and complaining that practically all gritty/gory horror films nowadays are about repulsive cannibalistic & inbred families entrapping a bunch of wayward teenagers and submitting them to extreme torture. The idea behind "Game of Death" is refreshingly different and I feel obliged to give it some extra appreciation for that reason. The style and vision of the directors' duo (Sebastien Landry and Laurence Morais-Lagace) is also very energetic and tinsel, with flashy opening credits and entire sequences/montages that look like footage from a typically 80s video game. The film starts with a group of young Millennial teenagers doing their thing: drinking by the pool and surrendering to their hormonal lusts. They stumble upon a seemingly harmless and vintage board game called "Game of Death" and naturally don't resist to play. After "donating" drops of their own blood via the finger, the game determines that they must murder 24 people, or else they'll die themselves. Obviously they laugh away the concept at first, but things get dead serious when heads start exploding out of the blue. The script doesn't bother to explain, so I won't either, but somehow the game registers the murders they are committing and counts down until the next head-explosion. Some members of the group turn into psychopaths with brutal survival instinct, whereas others become philosophical martyrs. I've read about comparisons between this film and "Scanners" or "Battle Royale", but that's only because heads are exploding. The simple truth is that "Game of Death" is a fun & undemanding stand-alone horror quickie. The film is extremely gore, with lots of fake blood and mediocre CGI-effects, fast-paced and blackly comical. The girls look yummy and the whole thing is finished after barely 75 minutes, what could you possibly expect more from a silly B-movie?

Kill or be killed is the golden rule of the Game of Death. Unfortunately, seven millennials have ignored that rule. Now each one's head will explode unless they kill someone.

In the simplest terms, this film is "Jumanji" meets "Battle Royale". Others have said "Jumanji" meets "Natural Born Killers", which also works. Either way, it is the premise of "Jumanji" (a board game that takes on a life of its own) re-interpreted with a horror theme. In a sense, even "Jumanji" could be seen as a horror film with its spiders and snakes, but the creators never went that dark.

Giving credit where credit is due, "Game of Death" is an excellent concept, and it is actually shocking that it took someone this long to think of it and develop a script. The creators took the concept, and then added excellent filters and touchstones. There is some humorous splatter gore that will draw comparisons to "Dead Alive", for example.

The standout actor in the film is Erniel Baez Duenas, the proverbial pizza guy. Initially his character is rather obnoxious, but increasingly becomes the most human and someone audiences might be able to identify with. In a film with such shallow plot, it is a testament to his skill that we are able to go through a small range of emotions towards the character.

Another strong point of the film is how it will have audiences considering entry-level ethics questions. Is murder acceptable if the alternative is death? Would suicide be morally preferable to murder? Are some lives more valuable than others? And it throws in the interesting math that eight players must kill 24 people – does this suggest the moral answer is suicide, because eight deaths is better than 24? Unfortunately, despite some promising ideas, the film really suffers from a disappointing execution (no pun intended). We are treated to excessive padding on the running time with slo-mo shots that reveal nothing, cell phone footage of inane conversations and gratuitous party moments. These inclusions feel like an afterthought to stretch the picture from 45 minutes to (barely) feature-length. The script comes out feeling woefully underdeveloped, which may be due to the film's origins as a web series. I am unclear whether the series was remade into a film, or just edited together. Either way, it does not work in the longer format.

Although there is a surreal running gag of manatee nature documentary excerpts which were amusing for inexplicable reasons, the film as a whole is half-baked and would benefit greatly from a complete mulligan. Perhaps the picture is more interesting for a younger or drunker demographic than this reviewer is a part of, but even they would have to be disappointed on some level.

"Game of Death" is playing July 15 at the Fantasia International Film Festival. The picture is brought to us courtesy of production companies La Guerrilla (in Montreal), Rockzeline (in Paris) and Blackpills (in Paris).