Jeux mortels

After the death of a young lady in a quiet town, Keegan the sister of the victim shows up and gets tangled in the daily life of the town inhabitants. Soon there's another victim, and Keegan takes upon herself to figure out who the killer is while wooing with the cop who's on the case.

Aggravating! Here's another case where the video artwork does a good enough job selling what is a generically spineless and tedious slasher fare of the 80s, where it deserves to languish in obscurity. It's a mystery story at heart, but director Scott Mansfield looks like he was influenced by the slasher craze (with certain set-pieces) that formulated in this period to deliver an indistinguishable feature of too many spontaneous changes in its patchwork direction. This would go on to devoid the structure of tension.

What starts off amusingly decent (some lady stripping and fondling her breasts in the front doorway of her house?!), transcends in to a sluggish (if peculiar) melodrama of redundant sequences involving endless interactions (like a playing a board game, while sharing the good times with a trite sounding song accompanying) and vacant characters, only to be broken up by some tame and non-suspenseful killings. The two elements never entirely gel together. The premise is cluttered with predictable and perplexing details, which only made me yawn and look at the clock. The mystery/or the slasher side of the story is half-baked that when it comes to the reveal of our ski-masked, glove wearing killer it's quite unsatisfactory. That's if you've made it that far, but the ending is an unusual choice.

Not helping the slight story and turgid script, was that the visuals were poorly lit and cinematography looked dusky (however there are moments like the pointless football game that's extremely well shot). I thought maybe it was the video, but the lighting in certain scenes was non-existent, which leads to the assumption that it was due to the production's low-budget. Was this the case of trying to rally up mood and atmosphere? If that was so, it didn't always work despite the best efforts by director Mansfield. Were it seemed to pay off was the choice of some eerie, high-pitched sound effects and music score. These were well executed.

The performances are somewhat acceptable with leading actress Jo Ann Harris making head-way with her quick-witted attitude and sincere appeal, even with that somewhat squeaky voice. Colleen Camp is fine, Sam Groom is laughably unconvincing in his role and a disinterested Steven Railsback is pretty much wasted.

This mundane and diluted effort can only roll up a 2 on this dice and leaves you thinking maybe it should have discarded it's slasher strokes.

A lousy slasher, but there are a few endearing characters and it works better as a made for TV mystery type thing. There's not a lot of blood or gore or scary sequences, but it's ok if you want something cozier. Unfortunately, it's hard to see much of anything due to the muddy, dark VHS transfer.

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.

1982 slasher Deadly Games (not to be confused with the similarly titled '84 slasher Fatal Games) begins promisingly enough, getting its first scene of gratuitous female nudity in well before the opening credits have finished—that's got to be some kind of record. The topless beauty is then chased through her very dark house by a killer dressed in black (including regulation ski mask and gloves), before the woman falls through a window to her death on some rocks. So far so good.

Sadly, after this encouraging start, it's all downhill. The victim's sister, Keegan (Jo Ann Harris), turns up at the scene of the crime, and a more irritating character it would be hard to imagine: within minutes you'll be wishing it was her who took the face plant onto the rocks, the woman's goofy mannerisms and constant, supposedly amusing quips proving irritating in the extreme. And she is the main character for the next eighty minutes or so. Not so great.

The remainder of the film primarily consists of Keegan developing a relationship with married cop Roger Lane (Sam Groom) and a friendship with Roger's best buddy, oddball theatre owner Billy Owens (Steve Railsback), one of whom is obviously the killer. This leads to such exciting scenes as the threesome going to the park for a football game, watching an old movie at the theatre, and playing a board game (part of a montage that is accompanied by a lousy song), all of which has sod all to do with the plot.

After lots of pointless waffle, interspersed by a couple of random jump scares, a spot more nudity (during the obligatory sex scene), and a couple of bloodless murders, the film ends with a predictable chase through the darkened theatre, after which Keegan conveniently finds a gun and shoots the killer dead. Normally this would signal the end credits, but writer Scott Mansfield has another surprise up his sleeve, one that'll leave you wondering what the heck you just watched.

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