(Streamed via R Flix)
Seymour Cassel stars as a happily married man celebrating his fortieth birthday home alone on a dark and stormy night. When two beautiful young girls (Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp) show up asking to use the phone, he chivalrously obliges them. It doesn’t take the lovely ladies long to seduce the poor dope with a three-way in the bathtub. Problems arise the next morning when they refuse to vacate the premises. When Cassel eventually threatens to call the police, the girls counter and claim they’ll say they were raped if the cops show up. They then perpetually harass, manipulate, and eventually kidnap him, which naturally leads to more complications, including murder.
Apparently, Death Game had a tumultuous production. Cassel and director Peter Traynor fought so much that he refused to come back to record his dialogue. The producers were then forced to get cinematographer David Worth to loop his lines. If Cassel didn’t have such a distinctive voice, it might not have mattered, but the dubbing is painfully obvious, and much of the suspense is lost every time he opens his mouth.
Luckily, Locke and Camp make a lot of the film’s shortcomings seem like a moot point. They are a lot of fun to watch and are hot to trot (especially Camp) during their love scenes. Heck, they still manage to look foxy as Hell even in the midst of their psychotic rantings and ravings. (Like when they put on way too much make-up and put Cassel on “trial” for his various crimes.) Even though you know from the get-go they are up to no good, it’s hard to fault Cassel for letting them in. I mean, duh.
The biggest debit is the annoying music. The theme song, “Good Old Dad”, which is played way too often will get on your damned nerves almost instantly. The ending is way too pat, which also knocks the rating down a bit. However, whenever Locke and Camp are front and center being psychotically sexy, Death Game is a game worth playing.
Eli Roth later remade this as Knock Knock, with Locke and Camp returning as producers.
If you’d like to know my thoughts on the remake, I reviewed it in my book, The Bloody Book of Horror: The Bloody Book of Horror: Lovell, Mitch: 9781542566629: Amazon.com: Books
AKA: Make-Up. AKA: The Seducers.
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