Jeux mortels

No pun intended - though a horror movie that is more about stopping your victims from breathing rather than slashing them, probably can't be called a slasher, right? Well I'll leave that technicality up to you to decide.

The movie is not for everyone, not just because of the lack of blood (it does contain some nudity though, if that is something that makes it "better" for you). But just how it is told, the way it is actually resolved (or is it?) ... and generally trying to be way too clever for its own good. Leaving us mostly without any explanation ... not satisfying ones that is.

Weird choices, like talking with the audience at one point - at least that's how it feels, unless he is auditioning or rehearsing ... but for what? Again, a very weird and confused movie. But still has a lot of influences - well very likely had. Like on Scream - and it is not just the phone call thing at the beginning but other things that Scream sort of adapted. If it was on purpose or not is another things alltogether of course.

This is a pretty messy movie. I saw it on cable when I was young and new slashers appeared every week on cable. It appealed to me at the time because the character who played "Keegan" was spunky and interesting, and the premise was, if I understand it correctly (somehow hinging on a gay subtext...?) unique for its time. There was also little else to watch back then.

The story, such that it is, involves the murders of young women in a town, and the solving of those murders by the spirited Keegan, who has just moved there, and at least starts OUT as a character that isn't an empty-headed cliché.

But who can tell what's going on? This movie just flaps along, presenting one disjointed scene after another, and characters you're never encouraged to care about in scenes that fall flat and look drab and ugly. The presence of the dynamic and almost always insanely fun Steve Railsback (soon to appear in "The Devil's Rejects") is barely noticed. It all becomes dull as a white color crayon very quickly with no gore, no tension, no logic and no story to speak of. This is why God invented the fast forward button. Or better yet, the "Stop" button. Put in another movie--any other movie--and enjoy a good evening's entertainment.

I have a feeling this was cobbled together from the remains of several other movies somehow, like how Roger Corman's "Hollywood Blvd," which this resembles in a weird way, was assembled. I hadn't seen this for years, saw it for a buck on VHS and promptly recorded Scooby-Doo cartoons over it so it would have SOME value anyway...

The film starts off as any proper slasher film should - with an opening scene murder. The quality of the VHS I have is poor, so I couldn't see everything that happened during it, but it was a good attempt at creating intensity. After the first kill, we get introduced to the police investigating the crime as well as the victim's sister Keegan (a reporter) who had left the town years prior. A lot of the middle portion of the film is Keegan seeing some old friends who still live in town and reconnecting with them. There are some scenes with a creepy theatre manager named Billy mixed in as well to create suspicion. The town's main police officer is also a suspect, and some of the movie is spent showing the female lead (Keegan) falling for him despite the fact that he is married. A few of the other women in the town are killed off leading to Keegan facing off against the murderer.

Deadly Games could have been so much better. It has some great things going for it; a killer wearing a black ski mask, cool movie title, decent plot... but the makers of "Deadly Games" add so much unnecessary filler that it becomes quite a bore. We get scenes of the character's playing sports and having a party, which are really pointless by the end of it all. There is also one strange choice by the director of "Deadly Games", for some reason he has Keegan act as if she doesn't even care that her sister died. She just comes back to town and is all cheery with her friends and mother. Oh, there is this strange two minute musical montage of Keegan and the two suspects playing a board game, pretty much the only connection the film has to it's title next to the fact that we see the killer playing around with the board game on one or two occasions. They could have done so much more with it, but they didn't.

Acting wasn't that bad, I like that the Keegan character is different from your regular/ordinary slasher film heroine. The ending was ridiculous and insulting in a way. You spend the whole hour and a half watching it for.. that? Anyways, I'd recommend this strictly to horror completests. It drags on way too much, and because of that you lose focus and lose interest.

4/10

"Deadly Games" a.k.a Who Fell Asleep, which to be honest I did as it just dragged mostly for me. It started off well with a young woman getting disturbing phone calls and then getting attacked by a man in a ski mask, which was quite tense and exciting, but the outcome was rather tame.

The aspect that I did like about it was the characters, especially the core female cast which I did find rather interesting and blossoming romance between the female lead and the cop, which was actually kind of sweet and they had decent chemistry together. But after a while it did get rather tedious, like for a start none of the other murders had any real spark or tension to them. But the lead actress Jo Ann Harris was rather likable as the female lead, and quite refreshing to have someone real and plucky in the role.

It's just everything else in this movie just lacks, for a start the killer was just too easy to figure out and when it came down to the final scenes, it was just well dull and total lack of proper motive, just made everything that came before it rather disappointing.

All in all there are glimmers here and there of a decent slasher movie, but sadly not enough of anything special with a mystery element that just doesn't work, despite good performances, this movie was just way too boring to keep me that interested.

I somehow thought this movie would turn out to be an undiscovered treasure, but no such luck! Visually murky and poorly plotted, this is basically an oh-so-familiar retread of "Halloween", though the director shows some talent and tries to surpass the limitations of the script. The lousy ending does not help. (*1/2)