The Murder Game on Blu-Ray.
Director: Robert Harari
Cast: Steve Polites, Katie Sirk, Samuel Klein, Julia
Pickens, Christina Marchano, Ariana Almajan, Vince Eustace, Erik Solliard, Max
Hambleton.
Murderous games have been the backbone of a number of horror
films and has provided the main theme for the entire Saw franchise. These games
are usually played by an anonymous leader and contain some sort of moral or
revenge based plot. The Murder Game is the latest film to use this plot, and
despite feeling like a third year University film project for most of it, it is
watchable if you take it for what it is.
From the opening scene you get set up for a plot that tries
its hardest to be twisty, but does it in a way that is decidedly predictable.
The film focuses on a group of teenage (about as teenage as the cast of Grease)
friends who invent a game where one of them is designated to be the killer and
has to murder the others, but it is not known who the killer is. When the group
find an empty factory/storage building they seem to have found the perfect
venue for their game. Add in the emo/goth outsider cousin of one of the group
and you have a recipe for a standard teen horror. When the gang begin the game, people
start actually dying and it becomes a game of survival until the killer makes themselves
known.
There is a lot about this film that is stereotypical. So
much so it almost borders on Scary Movie territory in its unwitting satire. The
emo/goth kid, the jock/leader guy, the pretty vain girl and the stoners. They
all have a home in this film. The film even throws in some random sex and drug
taking just to try and add a bit of extra depth into the film, but it
inevitably just feels like plot fodder.
The acting again feels studentish. It isn’t terrible, and
some of the cast show some potential yet it still feels cardboard and often
paper thin. There is some gore for those that need to see blood in their horror
films, and the effects are often the best aspect of the film.
Despite its downsides, The Murder Game is watchable and the
plot holds up against some of the more ridiculous horror film plots that have
been released over the years. It could most definitely do with some further
development and the script writing leaves a little to be desired, but in the
frame of mind of a B-Movie slasher the film could have been much worse.
The Murder will never transcend genre or reinvent the horror
wheel, yet it does display a certain level aptitude in terms of developing a
horror plot. Harari has laid some foundations, now lets see if he can build on
those for his next feature.
Rating: 2/5.