Game of Death goes as follows: a group of hard partyin’ millennial-types do the whole gamut of drinkin’ druggin’ and dirty lovin’ until they find something new to occupy their vacuous noodles; namely playing a board game that requires the players to kill one another or else the game will do the murder biz via making the player’s heads explode!
Now, will our hapless heroes have the stones to play the game to it’s conclusion, or will they all end up a heap of headless hosers?
Before we get to the one glaring negative with this fright flick, let’s start with some good vibes, shall we?
The concept of the killer game, and how it’s presented is tight and outta sight, and the story itself (courtesy of scribes Edouard H. Bond, Sebastien Landry, Laurence Morais-Lagaceis, and Philip Kalin-Hajdu) is aces, as is the slick n’ stylish direction from Landry and Morais-Lagaceis that blends elements of found footage, animation, 8-bit graphics and more into a fine visual feast. Additionally, there is some great practical gore on display here as well.
But as indicated up yonder, we got a problem here, and that is that the characters themselves (and not the actors that play them… those cats n’ creeps do an admirable job with what they are given) are absolutely intolerable. I hated them, you will doubtless hate them, and that’s an issue considering we are supposed to give a flyin’ fuck if they live or die.
As for extras on this DVD release from Cleopatra/MVD Entertainment, we get a stills slideshow and the film’s trailer (along with a bevy of trailers for other Cleopatra releases).
So there ya have it; Game of Death is a solid thriller populated by unlikable boobs and buffoons, and I can’t help but think with a better cast of characters this would have been a real winner.
