The Game

Director - Bill Rebane (Monster a Go-Go, The Alpha Incident)

Starring - Tom Blair (The Fury, Sure Fire), Jim Iaquinta (Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake, The LEgend Trip), and Carol Perry (The Demons of Ludlow)

Release Date - 1984

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "In this hotel they check you out in a box"

Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     I was only familiar with Rebane's film Blood Harvest and Rana prior to going into the Weird Wisconsin box set.  In fact, I had no idea he helmed Rana until I was on his imdb page working on my reviews for the previous films.  Though I only knew so little about him prior to this I still had heard about bad most of his films were.  His reputation aside, I actually had fun with The Alpha Incident, Invasion from Inner Earth, and The Demons of Ludlow.  Monster a Go-Go wasn't entirely bad but it's one I probably will never watch again.  The turning point in this set is 1984's The Game.  This movie was just a mess and, much like The Demons of Ludlow, feels like a made for television movie.  

     The film follows three wealthy people who run an annual competition inviting over a random assortment of people to stay in the mansion and see if they can last while the three scare the wits out of them.  The game has went smoothly for several years but this time around someone is killing the guests behind their backs.  

     The Game started out with the similar look of The Demons of Ludlow so I was really excited about that.  However, the film quickly went south with laughable acting, a chaotic story, and no pay off.  I feel like this may have been two stories that were quickly written together and rushed into development to get a movie out there.  Regardless, I don't see Twister's Revenge being this bad so this has to be the low point of the set.  The acting in this one is bad.  The fake southern draw, the laughable dialogue, the overreacting.  The cast has no direction and the scenes suffer from it.  I try to find something positive when I review a movie but there is nothing positive when it comes to the acting in this one.  The story for this one could have been an extremely fun one if the film would have went all in.  Instead, it's extremely messy and difficult to follow.  There is too many character arcs and the editing makes the movie jump around to the point it feels like you are watching episodes of a television show edited together.  Finally, the film has some creature effects that I enjoyed but if you want a bloody flick this is not for you.  The made for television look strikes again when it comes to the red stuff.  Overall, The Game is the bottom of the barrel so to speak.  It was a tough one to finish and by far the worst film in the set.  Skip it.