The Game

A real head scratcher of a film by Bill Rebane who appeared to be getting worse in his trade throughout the eighties. Three crackpot millionaires invite nine people to a remote hotel to compete in a last person standing contest in which the final contestant will be given $1 million provided he or she makes it that far. A series of lame pranks are pulled on some of the guests while the others engage in what most adults would do under the circumstances namely get shatfaced at the hotel bar. Most scenes are merely an excuse to focus the camera on various female body parts including an opening dance number that is a crossover of American Bandstand meets geriatric aerobics complete with hookers. If there was any hesitation that white people can't dance this scene hammers the final nail in that coffin. Pay close attention for the nipple slip. This continues on for about forty-five minutes until Bill Rebane begins throwing darts at various plot twists and whatever he hits becomes the inspiration for the next scene making this one incoherent mess. It's a game until it's not a game. The three old coots are in complete control until they're not. The hotel is possessed by a supernatural force until it becomes just props. They're dead until they're not. Even the narrator at the end replies that he doesn't know what the hell happened. I defy anyone to reason where Rebane was going on this one. The acting is dinner theater caliber minus the dinner. Most of the actors probably went back to their day jobs at the local Stuckey's. I give it a few points for the scene where the yuppie broad opens the closet and a skeleton is inside skull humping himself. Let's see Gone With the Wind do that! This Chilling Classics collection is really becoming the bane of me. Bane, Get it! Like Rebane! I hate myself.

This is one strange hacked together film, you get the feeling that the bond company had to come in on this one, I'm not surprised there's no credits on it, who would want to be associated with this film. The Acting of all involved is terribly stilted and the plot jumps around all over, it all makes very little sense. As I said before it looks like the bond company had to come in because it seems like there was alot of footage that wasn't shot that needed to be, and all the music was very ill-fitting library music (cheap I guess). Very, very odd. I might actually buy a DVD of it though, if it could let me in on what the hell was going on, and what happened to this movie.

It's possible you've seen this movie and didn't even know it!! How exciting is that!? Mill Creek Entertainment released a 50 movie pack last year (2005) Called Chilling Classics that includes this very movie in the collection. Only it's not titled The Game. No sir. It's titled The Cold Why did they change it? I am thinking maybe the were afraid of getting sued by Hasbro or some other game manufacturer. Either that or the print they had didn't have the title so they made something up.

Anyways, I liked the flick. People meet in a mansion to face their fears, and if they survive they get $1,000,000. It was better than some and not as good as others, but it did have a few creepy scenes. Like the guy right at the beginning. If I was him I'd be like. "EXCUSE ME! WAITER. There's a spider in my soup. There's plenty of chicks in this movie that remind me of 70's porn stars. That is, they aren't very good looking, and they aren't afraid to wear a buttload of make-up. Also one of them has a Wisconsin accent, so that always a turn-on. Eh?

The movie tries to be sort of a horror version of The Sting I guess, because the film makers want you to wonder what is going on right up until the end....Either that or the movie is just so crapily made i didn't know what what was going on until the end. In any case I give it a 5 out of 10... mainly for Wisconsin accent lady.

This movie had what sounded like a good premise: 9 people facing their fears to win one million dollars. Unfortunately, it did not turn out to be a good movie. There are several scenes that are way too long and really pointless like the dancing scene. A few scenes are just an excuse to point the camera at female body parts. The acting is bad, but some of the lines are amusing in their awfulness. What's really strange is that towards the end of the movie it turns into like a 5 minute western, and at the end, the twists, of which their were several, don't make sense with the rest of the movie. It seemed as though the director just added stuff on because he thought it would look cool, while conveniently ignoring the plot of the movie up to that point. It just didn't make a lot of sense. The only creepy thing was the old people dancing down the hall, but that doesn't even come close to making up for the rest of this mess.

Well this was certainly a weird little film. Very low budget, very bad actors, very 80's...very strange!

The plot is basically just a confusing rehash of House on Haunted Hill. 3 eccentric millionaires invite a group of people to stay at their mansion to face their greatest fears. The last one gets a million dollars. Pretty straight forward, but they still manage to make it a jumbled, confusing mess. At one point near the end, the narrator even admits he doesn't have a clue what's happening!

The actors are exactly what you'd expect to see in a low budget 80's horror flick, which is to say that they couldn't act their way out of a wet paper bag. They do have some amusing lines, including the best pick-up line ever "I had a vasectomy!".

Really though, this isn't an awful film considering. It's interesting to watch, because you really have no idea what's going to happen from one scene to the next. Really odd and poorly made film, but still entertaining in it's own way.

5.5/10