Les jeux de la mort

At the Falcon Academy of Athletics, a crazed killer is using a well-aimed javelin to bump off the school's most promising young sportsmen and women.

Given the wide range of sporting apparatus readily available to the lunatic in Fatal Games, it's a shame that the victims only ever meet their fate skewered on the sharpened point of a javelin: although it makes for a reasonably gruesome demise, the novelty soon wears off.

Thankfully, the repetitive nature of the film's kills is easily offset by the excess of female nudity, which is shoe-horned into proceedings at every available opportunity: a character gets topless for her boyfriend, girls are regularly seen showering in the changing rooms, 'final girl' Annie (Lynn Banashek) enjoys a naked massage (but not as much as the masseur!), and, in the film's most gratuitous scene, a totally nude victim is chased all over the school by the maniac after being interrupted taking a sauna. All that nekkidness certainly helps to make matters a lot more enjoyable.

Throw in an unscrupulous doctor plying the athletes with steroids and hormones, a coach having a lesbian affair with her student, a cool, lo-fi synth score and a lousy 'Eye of the Tiger'-style theme song (Take It To The Limit), plus a delightfully bonkers motive for the killer, and what you have is a reasonably entertaining piece of '80s slasher silliness. I may be in the minority, but I found it a lot more fun than Graduation Day, that other '80s slasher featuring high-school athletes.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

Fatal Games is a pretty standard slasher that held my attention throughout and didn't get boring. It's nothing spectacular or unique, but it's quite fun and also gives a nice insight into the life of an athlete. There are plenty of slasher clichés present such as plenty of T&A. There is a moment at the beginning that made me laugh out loud: the athletes are all joking around and throwing food. They throw a sausage at a girl and it lands on top of her skirt. The deaths are OK, but nothing particularly gory. There is one death that looks surprisingly realistic. You are also kept guessing as to who the killer is throughout - I didn't guess and I'm usually good at figuring these things out. When the killer is revealed we get a nice little twist, but I won't spoil it for you.

Watch this if you're a fan of slashers - it's not the best, but it's worth a look. Also recommended if you like this is a similarly themed slasher film called Aerobicide.

Tough training is suddenly the least of the problems for seven Olympic hopefuls at the Falcon Academy of Athletics. Seems a masked killer is running around an impaling folks with a javelin, a weapon so cumbersome it truly shows the killer's dedication to their rage. I'm a pretty good student of the slasher films, but this one always escaped me. This was the only directorial feature for co-writer/director Michael Elliot and you can see why given how bland everything is. There is some fun to be had by bad acting, poor dialogue and an amazing "Eye of the TIger"-esque theme song (sample lyrics: "Winning isn't everything, winning is the only thing!" and "Remember this and you'll never fall, the winner always takes all!"). You'll probably guess the killer early on, but there is a funny reveal towards the end. The last 20 minutes is pretty fast paced (even with one character having his leg in a cast) and the end fight on a scaffold is good (you'll laugh at how they shoehorned in setting up the scaffold earlier). The script was co-written by Rafael Buñuel, son of Luis. According to Variety, this went into production in the spring of '83 and Luis died in July. Coincidence?

Low-keyed 80's slasher with one tiny little difference compared to the rest of them. The irritating victims all go to a school for sport athletes instead to an ordinary high school. Hardly original, is it? Whilst the girls and boys preparing for the Olympics and the doctors pump them full of steroids, some demented loser is practicing his/her javelin techniques on student targets. It's a rather interesting modus operandi for an 80's killer, resulting in some nicely gory – albeit very cheesy – sequences. I don't know whether you're meant to guess along for the killer's identity, because the given clues are lame and very implausible, but it's a fun enough movie without intellectual red herrings and numerous plot twists. I was in an undemanding mood today, anyway! The humor doesn't really work, there's absolutely no tension or atmosphere and the acting performances are – as to be expected – pretty damn terrible. Oh well, at least "Olympic Nightmare" is never really boring and, since athletes need to take showers regularly, there's also quite a lot of gratuitous nudity. The denouement is a real hoot!

Yet another slasher movie from the 80's. This one is set in a sports academy and has the novelty of the killer using a somewhat unorthodox weapon - a javelin. But that novelty wears off after a while. There is not much suspense, no real clues to the "mystery" part, and the ending - especially the motivation of the killer - is absurd. There is also a rather laughable scene where the killer enters a pool in full scuba gear, javelin in hand, and his/her soon-to-be-victim fails to notice anything and keeps on swimming! On the plus side, there is ample nudity, a few well-done gore effects, the two main girls are cute, and most of the character interactions sound genuine. Enough good points to get this movie 4 stars out of 10.