A figure in black chases a terrified man to a rooftop where he fires a gun at him point blank… resulting in a rubber tipped dart sticking to the victims forehead accompanied by cartoon sound effects…
Hard cut to a fantastic opening credits sequence equal parts James Bond title sequence and an ’80s TV cop show.
Thus we are thrown into the fast paced, dart-heavy action of TAG: The Assassination Game, a craze on college campuses nation-wide… including the one attended by psych major Susan Swayze (Linda Hamilton, The Terminator) who’s determined to win the game!
Standing in her way are a multitude of competitors, but none are as intense as TAG’s current champion, Loren Gersh (Bruce Abbott, Re-Animator) and that mother fucker will do anything to win… anything!
TAG is a flick my arcane ass remembers playing on HBO on the regular back in the eerie ‘80s, but for some reason I never set putrid peepers upon it… I was a dumb ass.
Coming from writer/director/frequent Shape Nick Castle (The Last Starfighter), TAG: The Assassination Game is a truly unique and charming neo-film noir (with all of the expected tropes the genre has to offer) filled with offbeat characters engaged in high-stakes dart combat while attending college… and if that isn’t original I have no idea what is!
The actors assembled are more than up to the task, and Hamilton makes for an engaging heroine, and her chemistry with the film’s Mike Hammer, student paper reporter Alex Marsh (Robert Carradine, Revenge of the Nerds) is fun to behold.
Speaking of fun, the supporting cast is truly where it’s at here… we get appearances from Police Academy’s Michael Winslow (and “yes” he does the sounds), a greasy and manic Bruce Abbott, a blink and you’ll miss it early role for Forest Whitaker… but the king of them all is disc-jockey Frazer Smith as the smarmy Carpenter, the man in charge of TAG… he has the best lines and delivery in the entire piece, and truly makes the film!
Adding to the fun, Synapse have included an audio commentary featuring both Castle and Carradine (moderated by Horror’s Hallowed Grounds’ Sean Clark) that provides all the deets on the film’s genesis, production, and legacy… and the film’s absolutely over-the-top trailer that has to be seen to be believed!
A hidden gem from the anything goes VHS era, TAG: The Assassination Game is an often-hilarious, surprisingly suspenseful feature that’s hard to resist!
