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A couple of
friends sneak into a storage warehouse and
hide until closing time to play their self-invented
murder game, where one of the friends is chosen to be
the killer and the others have to figure out who the
killer is before getting killed themselves. It seems
like the best idea ever until someone starts taking the
game way too seriously.
I've described this exact same plot before a couple of
years ago when I reviewed the Danish slasher flick
"Backstabbed" and even though I'm pretty certain that
the makers of this film have never heard of this movie,
the two movies are so similar that this could easily
be called a remake. Both Backstabbed and Murder Game
are fairly entertaining (though I'm going to have to
say that Backstabbed wins overall with its higher
production values and more well developed story) but
never manage to really break through and become the
brilliant slasher flicks that they could have been.
But I'm not here to review Backstabbed once again, it's
time to review The Murder Game. So the story is fairly
simple, a bunch of friends sneak into a storage house
to play the murder game where one of the friends is
randomly selected to play the killer while the others
have to play victims while trying to figure out who
the killer is. Naturally it doesn't take long before
a real killer shows up and starts offing the teens one
by one. Could it be one of them? Well, if you've seen
any slasher movie, you all ready know that it is and
you've probably all ready guessed who it is after five
minutes or so, but for whatever reason, The Murder Game
manages to feel somewhat different from all the other
recent DTV slasher flicks we've seen.
The Murder Game is occasionally quite clever and offers
a few amusing jokes as well as a couple of great
characters that I quickly rooted for. I do believe that
the characters and the actors portraying them are the
main reason to why this movie stood out as much as it
did. The directing is also stellar and you can tell
that they've worked hard to get away from the low
budget look despite the fact that it was obviously
shot on a shoestring budget. The story is interesting
enough for you to keep watching and some of the death
scenes are just genius (there's an impalement with a
pipe which was brilliant).
Ultimately, The Murder Game is not one of those DTV
movies that leave you with a feeling that you've just
been ripped off, on the contrary, I actually happen
to think that it was worth every dollar. It's not a
great slasher flick and it won't stay with you for
long but on a slow Thursday night, this is definitely
good enough for you to check it out. I know it saved
my Thursday night anyway. Worth renting but don't
expect a whole lot from it, we've seen it before.
A decapitation, a pair of scissors in the head, a great
impalement and some overall quite gory death scenes.
I loved the rock music, it felt very professional.
Other than that there wasn't anything special about
the soundtrack, but what can you expect?
Decent slasher flick but nothing we haven't seen before,
at least not if you've seen "Backstabbed" which has
the exact same plot as this movie. Some people may
find this original (hell, some people thought Saw 2
was original) but for the experienced horror fan, this
is just a rehash with some clever jokes and some
interesting characters thrown into the mix. Good but
very forgettable.
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