Exploitation Nation

Death Game (1977)
D. Peter Traynor
VCI
Full Frame (Bad VHS Transfer too!)

This fairly mean spirited suspense romp predates the similar Fatal Attraction by a decade. though just because this got there first doesn’t necessarily make it the better movie. This also has a lot in common with very seventies home invasion movies like Death Weekend aka House By the Lake as well, where crazy people spend a good portion of the movie trashing someone’s house.

Seymore Cassell plays an approaching middle age business man whose family is called away when his son has to have emergency surgery. This leaves him alone in his house on his birthday. That evening two young pretty blonde girls arrive on his doorstep in the rain, played by Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp. The girls claim they missed their ride and are lost and need to use the phone. They end up having to wait, and since he is bored, and a bit lonely he oblidges them. Before long they are making themselves at home and things are pretty groovy. They seem like good gals. But when he finds them naked in his hot tub, they waste no time seducing him into a threesome. Well not really seducing him, more like pouncing on the dude. The next morning he wakes up thinking they should be gone, but instead finds they have entrenched themselves in his home and basically have no plans to leave. They inform him that Jackson (Sondra Locke) is seventeen and Donna (Colleen Camp) is only fifteen and that if he calls the cops he will go to jail for statutory rape. Then they begin the cat and mouse game of tormenting him. Beginning psychologically, but upping the stakes to hitting him with mace, tying him up and killing his cat.  It’s all out war on the old man by the end.

Basically this is one man’s descent into hell for committing the sin of infidelity. But unlike say Fatal Attraction where the Michael Douglas character has a chance to make a reasonable decision not to do what he does, George (Seymore Cassell) really doesn’t here. Sure he could have said no I suppose. But it all happens so fast that the movie really kind of shows how something could happen when it shouldn’t have. The movie clearly stacks the deck in George’s favor by not only doing this, but by making the girls instantly unlikable from the moment he wakes up the next morning. Their behavior at the breaksfast table is supposed to be grating to George, but it also is disgusting to the viewer as well. As the movie progresses, you steadily wait for them to get their commupance, not so much because of what they are doing to George but because of how they are acting period.

The acting in this film is surprisingly good. I’ve never been a fan of Sandra Locke. I’ve always thought she was freakish looking and frankly a bad actress (and don’t get me started on her only directing attempt Ratboy, holy shit that movie sucks!). But here she plays a convincing psycho bitch maybe a little too convincingly. Colleen Camp plays the stuck in adolesence, sexually stunted, psycho of the two with Daddy issues and is equally as good (not to mention has a great set of…ah…talents). Seymore Cassell, whom we are all used to seeing in Cop or Mafia roles these days is good as the put upon hero, but its weird to see him play a victim after years of him kicking ass and being a tough guy.

Technically the movie is all over the place. The lighting is particularly good, with great use of colored lighting, especially greens and blues. The editing is a bit wacky with some shots moving so fast it is hard to decern what is going on, but then the craptastic transfer could account for that too. The worst part of this is the craptacular score and music. The theme song “Good Old Dad” will have you comtemplating petitioning to get rid of Father’s Day just so there’s never a chance it will ever be played again. But the porno music during the sex scene is hysterical. Thankfully during the final third or so the music begins to fit the movie, unliek the rest which is just goofy.

And then there is the ending. I wont say what it is, except that I used to write endings liek this to my stories in Junior high school because i thought it was ironic. Then I got older and realized it wasn’t ironic, it was stupid. I never thought in a million years I would see an actual movie use this as a plot device (that wasn’t a comedy anyway, at least not in a Robert Hiltzik movie. If this was Sleepaway Camp I could see this making sense).

Overall this is fairly satisfying stuff that is held together by strong perfromances. It doesn’t really go anywhere that other movies of that time period hadn’t already had gone, and the ending is a cop out and a half that needs to be seen to be believed. But as a time waster, you can do a lot worse. The VCI DVD is simply a port of a VHS double featured with some straight to tape 90’s actioneer called Murder Rap which I have not watched yet.

Here’s a clip

And Here’s that damn “Good Old Dad” Song during the Opening Credits.

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