Game of Death (Cleopatra Entertainment DVD Review)

Is Game of Death Treasure or Trash?

DVD Distributed By Cleopatra Entertainment / July 14, 2020

Kill or be killed is the golden rule of the Game of Death, which sucks for seven decent-looking millennials who decide to play one sunny day. They quickly and gruesomely realize that if they don’t murder people, their heads will literally explode. Hence, they go on a killing spree, taking the lives of anyone they meet in their middle-of-nowhere town. The killer-instinct in each of them bubbles to the surface as the search for victims unravels into chaos. Divided, terrified and confronted with their own mortality, their drive to survive blurs with their desire to win the game. Will they turn on each other? Jumanji meets Natural Born Killers… The Game of Death will blow your mind. Bonus features include: Includes exclusive Slide Show, Bonus Movie Trailers and more!

Tyler’s Take (4 / 5)

If you’re looking for a horror movie that probably spent 75% of its budget on fake blood, then this is definitely the movie for you.

Game of Death follows a group of twenty-somethings that stumble upon an 80s-looking electronic game board that requires them to kill 24 people, or else the game will kill them. It’s a race against time as the teens struggle with the morality of killing innocent people, or letting their heads randomly explode in a glorious display of crimson confetti. Sprinkle in poorly matched background music and a bit of incest, and you have yourself a full-fledged B-movie, my friend.

If you can get past the first fifteen minutes of terrible dialogue and meaningless almost-sex scenes, you are in for what is actually a pretty creepy movie. The concept is clever, and the film’s pace is perfect for building tension while leaving little downtime between horrific murders.

And oh, the murders. So. Many. Murders. Some of them are your typical gunshot and stabbing kills, but the makeup and special effects are pretty quality. The other 25% of the budget definitely went here, as the director explores some unique camera angles to add an element of being in an actual video game. There’s a particularly memorable sequence where two of the characters decide to kill people in a palliative care facility in order to get the number to zero fastest, and the film shifts into a mix of 8-bit Nintendo gaming and graphic arts college thesis project. Surprisingly, it mostly works. The third-to-last death is by far the most artistic, and I don’t want to ruin it but it channels a little bit of the musical Hamilton, and the manner in which Alexander dies from the bullet at the end of that show. This was easily the most carefully crafted death scene in the film, and it was worth it. There’s also another scene where we see the impending doom from the perspective of the victim, most likely achieved by attaching a GoPro camera to their head. Still, the view from her eyes as the murderers debate who will pull the trigger is sufficiently eerie and uncomfortable.

If you noticed, I haven’t referred to any character by name yet. That’s because the characters are mostly forgettable, except for Marilyn, the Forest Ranger who does her best to channel Fargo’s Marge Gunderson. She steals all her scenes and adds the biggest missing element to the movie: empathy. SPOILER ALERT: She is brutally killed by one main character who says, “this has to stop,” and then commits murders again. But Marilyn is the only person I miss after that tire iron rearranges her face. It might also be because we met her dog Winston in a previous scene, and when she says “goodbye” to him via the walkie-talkie, well I just about felt that in my soul.

The movie ends with a whimper unfortunately, as the police station is having some sort of Christmas/bachelorette party with the sexiest Santa Claus you have ever seen. There is a much more appropriate place to end the movie in the previous scene, so that remains a wasted opportunity.

Overall, the special effects and the intermixing of some graphic design choices are the real stars of the show. And really, that’s the way it should be with this type of film. It would have been nice to have someone other than what seems to be a 13-year-old horndog writing the script, but that’s what makes this a B-movie. The extras are extremely limited and disappointing, comprising a brief slideshow of behind-the-scenes stills, and then a series of movie trailers for Cleopatra Entertainment (all of which look amazing, by the way). But I was hoping for an interview with the director or the makeup artist or maybe even the dog. Anything.

Overall I enjoyed this film, and if you can see past the one-dimensional nature of the actors and script, I think you will too. If you’re looking for a flick that could have been called Blood on Blood on Blood on Blood, then this is the movie for you.