Is Game Over a Hidden Treasure or Dumpster Fire?
December 24, 2018
Thomas, a very intelligent and resourceful child, is left alone with his beloved and fragile granddad on Christmas Eve, when a psychopath dressed as Santa Claus breaks into their mansion and starts chasing them. Thomas will do whatever he can to save himself and his granddad, leaving much of his childhood innocence behind.
Trashmen Rubbish Roundtable
Travis
How the hell have none of us seen this until now?!?
Jamie
I am a sucker for horror related Christmas movies and this French film from the 1980’s was overall enjoyable. It’s more akin to Die Hard and a violent Home Alone than say Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Jimbo
36.15 code Père Noël…aka Game Over…aka Deadly Games does bear a striking resemblance to Home Alone. Home Alone meets Die Hard, but curved for a hard PG market?
Jamie
The director (Rene Manzor) definitely loves his 80’s action films with homages of Rambo and Aliens thrown in for measure. I could have maybe done without a shirtless child flexing his muscles but I admit I laughed pretty hard over that.
Jimbo
As someone who loves 80s action, I certainly enjoy the 80s inspired design and aesthetic.
Travis
The influences on this film are almost too numerous to list, but I think the director did a good job mashing them together and put his own style on it.
Craig
I enjoyed the film for the most part. I liked the goofy mix of genres and it obviously doesn’t take itself too seriously. Patrick Floersheim has to be one of the great creepy Santas in film. The film does owe a lot to 80s American films, maybe a bit too much. If there’s something that I don’t like it’s that it doesn’t go far enough in it’s ideas. Things are introduced and then barely touched upon later.
Travis
Narrative I agree it’s a bunch of false starts, but being a European production you almost assume a plot will be a mess (if it even has one).
Craig
It’s not the lack of plot really, I’ve been watching Eurotrash my whole life so that doesn’t bother me. It’s that it’s almost like the film has a really short attention span. I want them to follow an idea (or set of ideas) to its logical conclusion.
Jamie
Overall I liked Game Over. The film is pretty strange with some moments of “Huh?” that I thought may have hurt the film a little. The sequence of Thomas booby-trapping a toy train armed with a grenade never goes anywhere and moves along too slowly. I was also hoping the film would push the violence a little more as it hovered over being a PG-13 / R rated film.
Jimbo
At the heart of it you have a psycho Santa Clause stalking a kid and his grandfather in a mansion that is more like a funhouse with hidden rooms, trap doors, and more toys that in The Toy.
I think the movie is really good. The kid actor who plays Thomas (Alain Lalanne) is decent and believable. I accept that he’s some wunderkind with exceptional technical abilities because the film is kind of a nightmare/fantasy. Thomas looks good in his Rambo inspired fatigues. Although, seeing a sweaty, greased up kid pumping iron over an “Eye of the Tiger” rip-off score does feel a bit over sexualized and creepy in this day and age.
Jamie
What I found to be the creepiest moments are the pre-internet usage of a psycho speaking to a child via computer in a mall claiming to be Santa Claus and thus, the child (Thomas) giving out his address. Also, the tone shifts dramatically once Santa kills Thomas’s pet dog in maybe one of the most brutal kills to an animal I have seen in awhile. I almost wish the film focused more on Thomas’s anger and exacting revenge on Santa due to his puppy being knocked off but the dog is sort of forgotten (well until we see Thomas carrying the poor mutt in slow motion during one sequence).
Travis
I just wish the movie went a bit more graphic after the shocking dog murder. It would have been more entertaining for the antics to take a realistic toll on the insane Santa, leaving his burned, mutilated, etc. by the end. Missed opportunity. I would have traded that off for less of the weird child leering. Keep in the giant slap Santa drops on that one girl though. That’s good stuff.
Jamie
Oh I forgot that Santa slapped a little girl before he was fired as the Santa, that was pretty funny.
Craig
The kid has the house all wired and networked but that’s abandoned about half way through the film. Grandpa is forgotten about for about a third of the film in the second act (until the stupid train scene). The script is too scatterbrained when it feels like it should be building it’s set pieces in an almost Looney Tunes style with crazed Santa as the Wile E. Coyote stand in. And they do sort-of do that but they don’t push it far enough and just seemingly give up on it and move on to something else. I get the dream-like nature of the narrative that they were going for but you could do both. It’s not dreamlike enough for me to work one way and not narrative enough to work in the other I think. Maybe that sounds too harsh. I did like it and I certainly wasn’t bored.
But the train bit is the perfect example. It seems like they get bored or don’t know how to get themselves out of a situation and just say ‘fuck it’.
Jamie
The sequence of Thomas booby-trapping a toy train armed with a grenade never goes anywhere and moves along too slowly.
Travis
Everyone hates the train scene!! While it did go on forever, it was kind of a poorly executed Roadrunner gag that led to the plot point of old gramps hiding in the armor.
Craig
The problem is Santa picks up the train, sees there’s a makeshift grenade and then, fuck it, on to the next scene. If something goes on that long it should have a payoff. Like maybe it hits the armor and explodes and then you find out grandpa moved later on or something.
Jamie
Yeah doesn’t he send the train back with the grenade towards the kid and nothing happens?
Travis
He sends it back, but it veers towards what you think is an empty suit of armor, but the kid flips out revealing diabetic dada is inside. They struggle over the dud grenade train. I didn’t say it was a good scene, but it had a long, drawn out point.
Craig
By that point we knew he was in the armor. That was revealed before he went all Home Alone.
Travis
This is the most intense breakdown this film has ever seen.
Jimbo
Which indicates that this French flick, even though flawed, has enough value to warrant detailed debate and discussion. Maybe it’s under cooked, and interesting ideas never come fully to fruition, but it’s rarely boring and I’m considering getting the region free German blu-ray to upgrade from the SD copy we watched.
Travis
Still good to know there is more Christmas horror out there.
Jamie
That’s the thing – is it Christmas horror? I think that’s why I enjoyed it as I didn’t know what genre this would fit in. Suspense? Horror? Action? Family? If I was doing a Christmas double feature, I may pair this up with Krampus or even possibly The Children (not the 1980 version).
Travis
Of course it is!! Deranged Santa home invading a child and grandfather….pretty much horror. The other genre elements don’t cancel it out.
Jimbo
Did you all know there is an official website?!? http://www.renemanzor.com/rubrique18.html
Travis
Nice website find Jimbo! The interview on there is pretty good. The director gets a bit pretentious, but does make some good points. One thing in particular is the “nightmarish” tone of the movie. I completely agree with that. If I saw this as a young kid the unbelievably large house that make no sense from an architectural standpoint with hidden rooms and art exhibit mazes, it completely comes off as a bad dream. Add in threats to your parents and dog, it’s all there for an unsettling watch. It would be hard to describe to someone years later and not get frustrated. Besides sounding insane, they would just list off a bunch of similar titles, getting nowhere;
Jamie
Game Over isn’t any worse than your average killer Santa flick. I’ll say it’s miles better than any of the Silent Night, Deadly Night sequels. While this felt more Tim Burton-ish (that strange mansion the boy lived in reminded me of German expressionism / Cabinet of Dr. Caligari but that is stretching it maybe) I rather enjoyed the weirdness but agree that a bit more bloodshed would have been more appealing. Still I think Game Over is worthy seeking out.
Hidden Treasure/Dumpster Fire?
| Jimbo: |  (4.0 / 5) |
| Jamie: |  (3.5 / 5) |
| Travis: |  (3.0 / 5) |
| Craig: | (4.0 / 5) |
| Average: |  (3.6 / 5) |
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