Deadly Games

Plot synopsis:
The first episode introduces the protagonist, Dr. Gus Lloyd, an Antimatter physicist, engineer and video game designer who has created a live-action game in his spare time to exert his indignant feelings about people in his life who have all made his life hell on Earth (his father, his ex-wife's mother, his ex-wife's divorce lawyer, his ex-girlfriend, his former employer, a high school football-Quarterback bully, his old camp counselor, etc.); the villains of the game are modeled after all these people. The master villain is Jackal, who is a combination of the devil and Gus' father. The Jackal wears a Vanilla white Ice Cream suit and drives a Chrysler convertible to match.
The hero is "The Cold-Steel Kid," a warrior trying to save the dying world, dons commando wear, and is naturally modeled after Gus himself, and the sometime helplessly captive, sometime active heroine ingenue The Kid is always trying to rescue — "The Girl" — is based on Lauren Ashborne, Gus' ex-wife (wearing the kind of dress of a "Damsel in distress").
In an accident involving an experimental laboratory project, Jackal and the villains step out of the game and into the real world to cause the apocalyptic carnage and domination they were programmed to for the game.
Each week, one of the villains tries to carry out an evil plot according to the rules of the video game, and Gus, Lauren, and Gus' friend Peter Rucker try to defeat and destroy said villain. Almost indestructible and superhumanly strong, each villain is programmed with specific weapons and weaknesses based on that villain's "theme"; e.g., "Killshot's" Achilles' Heel was being sprayed with water, The Boss would "fire" people with exploding pink slips and his weak link was red ink, The Evil Shirley's was dirt and she would be wiped out by having a house fall on her, The Camp Counselor would get burned by being hit with charcoal and would be killed-off by an arrow shot right through his own bulls-eye, The Practical Joker could only be defeated by his master prank being foiled, The Divorce Attorney was a being that sucked up electricity and distributed it in the form of lightning bolts, The Motivational Speaker literally ate bologna and killed people with a gun that ejected audiocassettes and would reduce them to nothing but his audiotape, and he could only be destroyed by eating his own words. He could be slowed down with shots from a paintball gun.
Another weekly bad guy was a corrupted car mechanic that tasered people with a calculator and would be destroyed by seeing his own reflection. And of course, The Garbage Man was damaged by cleaning products and The Orthodontist (as well as his assistant) had an aversion to sugar. All the henchmen were instantly obliterated—going up in smoke and blue light when the Jackal's evil weekly master scheme was foiled. The Jackal's own vice was being hit with a baseball—the very one autographed by Bobby Mercer that Gus got from the only baseball game he ever went to with his own father. Jackal is present in every episode, commanding the other villains and vexing the heroes, usually with a glass of champagne in hand.

Tags: murder

Review:
Not all Bad. Not as bad as some reviewers will have you believe, but this isn't Don't Look in the Basement or Re-Animator either.
This film centers on a plucky gal named Keegan (Jo Ann Harris) whose sister is murdered in the opening scene.
She returns home to solve the case with help from Vietnam vet sheriff Sam Groom who is one of two suspects.
One of the main flaws is that throughout the film, we, the viewers, know that the killer can either be one of two Vietnam vets: the surly, ladiesman sheriff who screws everything in site or his battle buddy Steve Railsback who operates the local theater.
Needless to say, the suspense was lacking.
The viewer has two suspects.
Which Vietnam vet is killing off all the pretty things in town?
VIOLENCE: $$$ (This won't disappoint gore hounds but what will disappoint them is the time between death scenes.
There is far too much filler in the script--displayed as characterization--that will assuredly lead the less entranced viewer reaching for the fastforward button.
The opening scene has Alexandra Morgan strangled.
Later Colleen Camp gets hers in a pool, but it is a poorly filmed scene.
Denise Galik gets throttled after a romp in bed.
Other dames get attacked also).STORY: $$$ (The story starts off very promising: a sexy woman gets pushed out a window to her death.
Shortly thereafter we are introduced to a unique character, Keegan, that isn't your ordinary screaming head but a wise acre.
Keegan is fun for about half an hour, but once the story starts to sputter, Keegan's antics become less eccentric and more annoying.
Also, the story deals with a board game but the screenwriter failed to mix that subplot into the story effectively).ACTING: $$ (Jo Ann Harris, although interestingly plucky at the beginning, will indeed get on your nerves.
A character like that needs to be a co-star at best and they had that in the acid tongued waitress that Denise Galik masterfully played.
The lead needn't be that off-putting.
Sam Groom was alright as the sheriff but fans of Steve Railsback and Colleen Camp need not apply.
Colleen has about ten minutes screen time and when she gets killed in the pool, you can hardly tell--given the poor lighting--that it was Colleen who even entered the water).SEXUALITY: $$$$$ (Here you won't be let down, unless this isn't your thing.
The lovely Alexandra Morgan (I believe that's her name) has a lengthy topless scene in the opening scene of the film.
She is well put together if you know what I mean.
Jo Ann Harris has a brief topless scene before entering the shower and the heavenly Denise Galik goes threads free in bed with Sam Groom)..
Totally worthless....
Much more frightening than the actual movies themselves is the fact that one continues to discover slasher movies that were released in the 1980's!
This decade truly is an inexhaustible source for low-budgeted and inane horror pictures that often ended up in oblivion shortly after coming out.
"Deadly Games" is such a prototype example of the  righteously  forgotten 80's slasher!
The plot and characters are derivative, the killings are unimaginative and the attempts to insert humor are downright pitiable.
Tension apparently was an unavailable option as well.
The plot drags slowly and spends way too much time focusing on bimbos and losers cheating on each other.
Past halfway in the film I still hadn't figured out which characters are sleeping together whilst they aren't supposed to, and who the hell cares about that anyway?
The strange murder of a voluptuous town girl (sadly, the hottest chick dies first) reunites a group of old friends and makes them speculate together about what could have happened.
One of them is a copper  though not a very convincing one  investigating the case, one girl is the wannabe cynical sister of the first victim and all the rest are dispensable dorks.
There are plenty of bone-headed who are waiting, no  BEGGING to get slaughtered but nothing happens.
At a certain point, the ultimate low point of the film, you're actually watching at how three of the characters (one of them being the copper) sit in a theater and see a film  for several long minutes!
What's the freaking point?!?
And why can't that chick stop talking to herself or at least realize her jokes and one-liners are totally not funny?
If the theater scene wasn't painfully dire enough yet, they carry on playing a board game and football whilst the most abysmal 80's song can be heard.
How is this relevant?
And you, you stupid cop, shouldn't you be looking for the killer?
In case you haven't noticed yet, "Deadly Games" is one of the worst and most redundant slashers of the entire 80's, and that's saying something, since we mentioned the inexhaustible offer before.
It doesn't even deserve to be called a slasher, as the slashing is next to none!
This is a pile of steaming rubbish about a bunch of losers struggling with midlife crises whilst still in their early thirties.
Avoid like the plague..
"You Lose".
This is a pretty messy movie.
I saw it on cable when I was young and new slashers appeared every week on cable.
It appealed to me at the time because the character who played "Keegan" was spunky and interesting, and the premise was, if I understand it correctly (somehow hinging on a gay subtext...?) unique for its time.
There was also little else to watch back then.The story, such that it is, involves the murders of young women in a town, and the solving of those murders by the spirited Keegan, who has just moved there, and at least starts OUT as a character that isn't an empty-headed cliché.But who can tell what's going on?
This movie just flaps along, presenting one disjointed scene after another, and characters you're never encouraged to care about in scenes that fall flat and look drab and ugly.
The presence of the dynamic and almost always insanely fun Steve Railsback (soon to appear in "The Devil's Rejects") is barely noticed.
It all becomes dull as a white color crayon very quickly with no gore, no tension, no logic and no story to speak of.
This is why God invented the fast forward button.
Or better yet, the "Stop" button.
Put in another movie--any other movie--and enjoy a good evening's entertainment.I have a feeling this was cobbled together from the remains of several other movies somehow, like how Roger Corman's "Hollywood Blvd," which this resembles in a weird way, was assembled.
I hadn't seen this for years, saw it for a buck on VHS and promptly recorded Scooby-Doo cartoons over it so it would have SOME value anyway....
Deadly boredom..
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..
These "Games" are no fun....
I somehow thought this movie would turn out to be an undiscovered treasure, but no such luck!
Visually murky and poorly plotted, this is basically an oh-so-familiar retread of "Halloween", though the director shows some talent and tries to surpass the limitations of the script.
The lousy ending does not help.
Deadly Games.
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..
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.
If you watch Deadly Games, you lose..
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..
Nothing special.
"Deadly Games" a.k.a Who Fell Asleep, which to be honest I did as it just dragged mostly for me.
It started off well with a young woman getting disturbing phone calls and then getting attacked by a man in a ski mask, which was quite tense and exciting, but the outcome was rather tame.The aspect that I did like about it was the characters, especially the core female cast which I did find rather interesting and blossoming romance between the female lead and the cop, which was actually kind of sweet and they had decent chemistry together.
But after a while it did get rather tedious, like for a start none of the other murders had any real spark or tension to them.
But the lead actress Jo Ann Harris was rather likable as the female lead, and quite refreshing to have someone real and plucky in the role.It's just everything else in this movie just lacks, for a start the killer was just too easy to figure out and when it came down to the final scenes, it was just well dull and total lack of proper motive, just made everything that came before it rather disappointing.All in all there are glimmers here and there of a decent slasher movie, but sadly not enough of anything special with a mystery element that just doesn't work, despite good performances, this movie was just way too boring to keep me that interested..
Not too memorable....
While not a bad movie, the only memorable parts were the deaths and the ending.
The bright spot, however, was Colleen Camp's performance.
While not the best ever, it was nice to see that she was acting as well as she was.
Unfortunately, the movie was confusing and a lot of it made no sense for a while and even until the end...
that's what I get for falling asleep through it, huh?
It was pretty boring...