Deadly Games (1982) User Reviews (20)

If you watch Deadly Games, you lose.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 23 November 2016]

1982 slasher Deadly Games (not to be confused with the similarly titled '84 slasher Fatal Games) begins promisingly enough, getting its first scene of gratuitous female nudity in well before the opening credits have finished—that's got to be some kind of record. The topless beauty is then chased through her very dark house by a killer dressed in black (including regulation ski mask and gloves), before the woman falls through a window to her death on some rocks. So far so good.

Sadly, after this encouraging start, it's all downhill. The victim's sister, Keegan (Jo Ann Harris), turns up at the scene of the crime, and a more irritating character it would be hard to imagine: within minutes you'll be wishing it was her who took the face plant onto the rocks, the woman's goofy mannerisms and constant, supposedly amusing quips proving irritating in the extreme. And she is the main character for the next eighty minutes or so. Not so great.

The remainder of the film primarily consists of Keegan developing a relationship with married cop Roger Lane (Sam Groom) and a friendship with Roger's best buddy, oddball theatre owner Billy Owens (Steve Railsback), one of whom is obviously the killer. This leads to such exciting scenes as the threesome going to the park for a football game, watching an old movie at the theatre, and playing a board game (part of a montage that is accompanied by a lousy song), all of which has sod all to do with the plot.

After lots of pointless waffle, interspersed by a couple of random jump scares, a spot more nudity (during the obligatory sex scene), and a couple of bloodless murders, the film ends with a predictable chase through the darkened theatre, after which Keegan conveniently finds a gun and shoots the killer dead. Normally this would signal the end credits, but writer Scott Mansfield has another surprise up his sleeve, one that'll leave you wondering what the heck you just watched.

Not all Bad

[BloodTheTelepathicDog · 5/10 · 7 March 2010]

Not as bad as some reviewers will have you believe, but this isn't Don't Look in the Basement or Re-Animator either. This film centers on a plucky gal named Keegan (Jo Ann Harris) whose sister is murdered in the opening scene. She returns home to solve the case with help from Vietnam vet sheriff Sam Groom who is one of two suspects. One of the main flaws is that throughout the film, we, the viewers, know that the killer can either be one of two Vietnam vets: the surly, ladiesman sheriff who screws everything in site or his battle buddy Steve Railsback who operates the local theater. Needless to say, the suspense was lacking. The viewer has two suspects. Which Vietnam vet is killing off all the pretty things in town?

VIOLENCE: $$$ (This won't disappoint gore hounds but what will disappoint them is the time between death scenes. There is far too much filler in the script--displayed as characterization--that will assuredly lead the less entranced viewer reaching for the fastforward button. The opening scene has Alexandra Morgan strangled. Later Colleen Camp gets hers in a pool, but it is a poorly filmed scene. Denise Galik gets throttled after a romp in bed. Other dames get attacked also).

STORY: $$$ (The story starts off very promising: a sexy woman gets pushed out a window to her death. Shortly thereafter we are introduced to a unique character, Keegan, that isn't your ordinary screaming head but a wise acre. Keegan is fun for about half an hour, but once the story starts to sputter, Keegan's antics become less eccentric and more annoying. Also, the story deals with a board game but the screenwriter failed to mix that subplot into the story effectively).

ACTING: $$ (Jo Ann Harris, although interestingly plucky at the beginning, will indeed get on your nerves. A character like that needs to be a co-star at best and they had that in the acid tongued waitress that Denise Galik masterfully played. The lead needn't be that off-putting. Sam Groom was alright as the sheriff but fans of Steve Railsback and Colleen Camp need not apply. Colleen has about ten minutes screen time and when she gets killed in the pool, you can hardly tell--given the poor lighting--that it was Colleen who even entered the water).

SEXUALITY: $$$$$ (Here you won't be let down, unless this isn't your thing. The lovely Alexandra Morgan (I believe that's her name) has a lengthy topless scene in the opening scene of the film. She is well put together if you know what I mean. Jo Ann Harris has a brief topless scene before entering the shower and the heavenly Denise Galik goes threads free in bed with Sam Groom).

Too many in-jokes, not enough thrills

[lor_ · 29 January 2023]

My review was written in September 1983 after watching the movie on Cinemax.

Filmed with the title"Who Fell Asleep?" during the horror production boom at the end of 1979, "Deadly Games" is an unsuccessful thriller marginally released last year and currently getting pay tv exposure and available on video cassette. Filmmaker Scott Mansfield has piloted a good cast in okay performances, but failed to provide the requisite thrills.

Routine story, frequently undercut by knowing horror buff references, has Keegan (Jo Ann Harris), a writer for a music magazine, returning to her sleepy hometown where a rash of murders (detailed in usual stalk-and-slash, heavy breathing on the soundtrack fashion) has broken out. Though laid-back cop on the case Roger Lane (Sam Groom) doesn't acknowledge it, the chief suspect is his scarred, Vietnam Wa pal Billy Owens (Steve Railsback), whom the camera virtually indicts in the opening reels.

While Keegan is meeting her mom (June Lockhart in a very small role) and old chums, picture drifts into old-fashioned romantic idylls, touch football games and other diversions, dissipating the atmosphere of danger.

Harris gives a fun, personable performance as the independent heroine who can take care of herself, but the rest of the cast is relegated to stock roles. Fil's release title refers to a horror movie board game Groom and Railsback play parallel to the real-life killings. Railsback works as a projectionist in a horror movie theatre (star trio watch the 1932 "The Monster Walks" after-hours there one night), setting up many genre notations in the script.

Ultimately, the fairly-predictable killer turns out to be merely seeking some excitement in a too-dull community, leading to a wholly unsatisfying, convenient freeze-frame ending. Tech credits are okay.

Not A Great Film; Understand Why

[amfanmagician-1 · 6/10 · 23 February 2022]

I got the Blu-ray today, so at least I can finally see the film as it was meant to be seen. First, let me say I would watch anything Jo Ann Harris is in, and she sparkles here and the rest of the cast is quite good as well. You can't lay the blame on the actors. The problem is that the script is fuzzy; not tight or cohesive. Sometimes with a film that doesn't quite work such as this, the film editor is to blame, but ultimately who is accepting the final product? Other times, someone with an idea for a film has found a great set location (here a beautiful vintage theater) and haphazardly writes a script around it. Again, the cast had a good pedigree, and performed well, but without a tight script, the audience is left less than satisfied. The killer gives a halfhearted speech near the climax describing his motivation, but it's too little, too late, the script failed to show us this throughout the previous scenes. Some may be turned off by the Vietnam veteran gone-bad implications. Mostly for Jo Ann Harris fans; others will be unsatisfied.

Non-slasher slasher

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 14 February 2022]

Deadly Games may have been sold as a slasher, but it's more of a murder mystery. Sure, the killings are pretty intense - a long drowning, burying a victim alive - but it's maybe even less a murder mystery and more a late 70s, early 80s small town romantic drama where lots of people swing and one of them - either a cop or Vietname vet - is a masked killer.

It's interesting how little this movie cares about fitting into any neat and clean box.

Clarissa Jane Louise "Keegan" Lawrence (Jo Anne Harris) is a rock journalist back home after the death of her sister, a murder that she's out to solve. After all, her sister didn't jump out of a window like that, right? She had to have been thrown.

Dick Butkis, the Chicago Bears linebacker legend that had such a long career after that as a kid I just thought he was an actor, owns a coffee shop in town. That's where a lot of the exposition happens, like how strange Billy Owens (Steve Railsback) is, a Vietnam soldier not back home all in one mental piece who is obsessed with monster movies and his horror-themed game of Chutes and Ladders and oh yeah, he also lives in an old movie theater and sounds like someone I'd go out of my way to be friends with. That said, it's set up that he has to be the masked killer. Certainly the killer can't be Sheriff Roger Lane (Sam Groom), because he's nice and plays on the swings and romances Keegan.

Director and writer Scott Mansfield seems out to make a movie that makes you believe it's a slasher and then pulls the rug out from under you with an ending that completely predates Scream - without spoilers, but man, that does feel like a spoiler.

The board hame in this is Universal monsters inspired and I love that Roger and Billy have been playing it for decades, as well as the killer somehow knowing way too much about it. I can only wish I still had friends ready to play a board game that often.

Coleen Camp and June Lockhart are in this as well, so my casting brain was quite impressed by who Mansfield got to be in this movie.

It's not perfect, it's probably too long and too talky, but I enjoyed the laid back vibe of Deadly Games. The last ten minutes are worth the time that it takes to get there and I was pretty surprised by the leap that the film makes.

Totally worthless...

[Coventry · 1/10 · 20 January 2008]

Much more frightening than the actual movies themselves is the fact that one continues to discover slasher movies that were released in the 1980's! This decade truly is an inexhaustible source for low-budgeted and inane horror pictures that often ended up in oblivion shortly after coming out. "Deadly Games" is such a prototype example of the – righteously – forgotten 80's slasher! The plot and characters are derivative, the killings are unimaginative and the attempts to insert humor are downright pitiable. Tension apparently was an unavailable option as well. The plot drags slowly and spends way too much time focusing on bimbos and losers cheating on each other. Past halfway in the film I still hadn't figured out which characters are sleeping together whilst they aren't supposed to, and who the hell cares about that anyway? The strange murder of a voluptuous town girl (sadly, the hottest chick dies first) reunites a group of old friends and makes them speculate together about what could have happened. One of them is a copper – though not a very convincing one – investigating the case, one girl is the wannabe cynical sister of the first victim and all the rest are dispensable dorks. There are plenty of bone-headed who are waiting, no … BEGGING to get slaughtered but nothing happens. At a certain point, the ultimate low point of the film, you're actually watching at how three of the characters (one of them being the copper) sit in a theater and see a film … for several long minutes! What's the freaking point?!? And why can't that chick stop talking to herself or at least realize her jokes and one-liners are totally not funny? If the theater scene wasn't painfully dire enough yet, they carry on playing a board game and football whilst the most abysmal 80's song can be heard. How is this relevant? And you, you stupid cop, shouldn't you be looking for the killer? In case you haven't noticed yet, "Deadly Games" is one of the worst and most redundant slashers of the entire 80's, and that's saying something, since we mentioned the inexhaustible offer before. It doesn't even deserve to be called a slasher, as the slashing is next to none! This is a pile of steaming rubbish about a bunch of losers struggling with midlife crises whilst still in their early thirties. Avoid like the plague.

Deadly boredom.

[lost-in-limbo · 2/10 · 19 December 2008]

After the death of a young lady in a quiet town, Keegan the sister of the victim shows up and gets tangled in the daily life of the town inhabitants. Soon there's another victim, and Keegan takes upon herself to figure out who the killer is while wooing with the cop who's on the case.

Aggravating! Here's another case where the video artwork does a good enough job selling what is a generically spineless and tedious slasher fare of the 80s, where it deserves to languish in obscurity. It's a mystery story at heart, but director Scott Mansfield looks like he was influenced by the slasher craze (with certain set-pieces) that formulated in this period to deliver an indistinguishable feature of too many spontaneous changes in its patchwork direction. This would go on to devoid the structure of tension.

What starts off amusingly decent (some lady stripping and fondling her breasts in the front doorway of her house?!), transcends in to a sluggish (if peculiar) melodrama of redundant sequences involving endless interactions (like a playing a board game, while sharing the good times with a trite sounding song accompanying) and vacant characters, only to be broken up by some tame and non-suspenseful killings. The two elements never entirely gel together. The premise is cluttered with predictable and perplexing details, which only made me yawn and look at the clock. The mystery/or the slasher side of the story is half-baked that when it comes to the reveal of our ski-masked, glove wearing killer it's quite unsatisfactory. That's if you've made it that far, but the ending is an unusual choice.

Not helping the slight story and turgid script, was that the visuals were poorly lit and cinematography looked dusky (however there are moments like the pointless football game that's extremely well shot). I thought maybe it was the video, but the lighting in certain scenes was non-existent, which leads to the assumption that it was due to the production's low-budget. Was this the case of trying to rally up mood and atmosphere? If that was so, it didn't always work despite the best efforts by director Mansfield. Were it seemed to pay off was the choice of some eerie, high-pitched sound effects and music score. These were well executed.

The performances are somewhat acceptable with leading actress Jo Ann Harris making head-way with her quick-witted attitude and sincere appeal, even with that somewhat squeaky voice. Colleen Camp is fine, Sam Groom is laughably unconvincing in his role and a disinterested Steven Railsback is pretty much wasted.

This mundane and diluted effort can only roll up a 2 on this dice and leaves you thinking maybe it should have discarded it's slasher strokes.

Quit playing games with my ... neck?

[kosmasp · 5/10 · 10 July 2022]

No pun intended - though a horror movie that is more about stopping your victims from breathing rather than slashing them, probably can't be called a slasher, right? Well I'll leave that technicality up to you to decide.

The movie is not for everyone, not just because of the lack of blood (it does contain some nudity though, if that is something that makes it "better" for you). But just how it is told, the way it is actually resolved (or is it?) ... and generally trying to be way too clever for its own good. Leaving us mostly without any explanation ... not satisfying ones that is.

Weird choices, like talking with the audience at one point - at least that's how it feels, unless he is auditioning or rehearsing ... but for what? Again, a very weird and confused movie. But still has a lot of influences - well very likely had. Like on Scream - and it is not just the phone call thing at the beginning but other things that Scream sort of adapted. If it was on purpose or not is another things alltogether of course.

These "Games" are no fun...

[gridoon · 4/10 · 20 March 2001]

I somehow thought this movie would turn out to be an undiscovered treasure, but no such luck! Visually murky and poorly plotted, this is basically an oh-so-familiar retread of "Halloween", though the director shows some talent and tries to surpass the limitations of the script. The lousy ending does not help. (*1/2)

Nothing special

[acidburn-10 · 4/10 · 12 January 2015]

"Deadly Games" a.k.a Who Fell Asleep, which to be honest I did as it just dragged mostly for me. It started off well with a young woman getting disturbing phone calls and then getting attacked by a man in a ski mask, which was quite tense and exciting, but the outcome was rather tame.

The aspect that I did like about it was the characters, especially the core female cast which I did find rather interesting and blossoming romance between the female lead and the cop, which was actually kind of sweet and they had decent chemistry together. But after a while it did get rather tedious, like for a start none of the other murders had any real spark or tension to them. But the lead actress Jo Ann Harris was rather likable as the female lead, and quite refreshing to have someone real and plucky in the role.

It's just everything else in this movie just lacks, for a start the killer was just too easy to figure out and when it came down to the final scenes, it was just well dull and total lack of proper motive, just made everything that came before it rather disappointing.

All in all there are glimmers here and there of a decent slasher movie, but sadly not enough of anything special with a mystery element that just doesn't work, despite good performances, this movie was just way too boring to keep me that interested.

Deadly Games

[Toronto85 · 4/10 · 19 January 2013]

The film starts off as any proper slasher film should - with an opening scene murder. The quality of the VHS I have is poor, so I couldn't see everything that happened during it, but it was a good attempt at creating intensity. After the first kill, we get introduced to the police investigating the crime as well as the victim's sister Keegan (a reporter) who had left the town years prior. A lot of the middle portion of the film is Keegan seeing some old friends who still live in town and reconnecting with them. There are some scenes with a creepy theatre manager named Billy mixed in as well to create suspicion. The town's main police officer is also a suspect, and some of the movie is spent showing the female lead (Keegan) falling for him despite the fact that he is married. A few of the other women in the town are killed off leading to Keegan facing off against the murderer.

Deadly Games could have been so much better. It has some great things going for it; a killer wearing a black ski mask, cool movie title, decent plot... but the makers of "Deadly Games" add so much unnecessary filler that it becomes quite a bore. We get scenes of the character's playing sports and having a party, which are really pointless by the end of it all. There is also one strange choice by the director of "Deadly Games", for some reason he has Keegan act as if she doesn't even care that her sister died. She just comes back to town and is all cheery with her friends and mother. Oh, there is this strange two minute musical montage of Keegan and the two suspects playing a board game, pretty much the only connection the film has to it's title next to the fact that we see the killer playing around with the board game on one or two occasions. They could have done so much more with it, but they didn't.

Acting wasn't that bad, I like that the Keegan character is different from your regular/ordinary slasher film heroine. The ending was ridiculous and insulting in a way. You spend the whole hour and a half watching it for.. that? Anyways, I'd recommend this strictly to horror completests. It drags on way too much, and because of that you lose focus and lose interest.

4/10

Not too memorable...

[horrormb · 5/10 · 11 January 2000]

While not a bad movie, the only memorable parts were the deaths and the ending. The bright spot, however, was Colleen Camp's performance. While not the best ever, it was nice to see that she was acting as well as she was. Unfortunately, the movie was confusing and a lot of it made no sense for a while and even until the end... that's what I get for falling asleep through it, huh? It was pretty boring...

"You Lose"

[TonyDood · 15 June 2005]

This is a pretty messy movie. I saw it on cable when I was young and new slashers appeared every week on cable. It appealed to me at the time because the character who played "Keegan" was spunky and interesting, and the premise was, if I understand it correctly (somehow hinging on a gay subtext...?) unique for its time. There was also little else to watch back then.

The story, such that it is, involves the murders of young women in a town, and the solving of those murders by the spirited Keegan, who has just moved there, and at least starts OUT as a character that isn't an empty-headed cliché.

But who can tell what's going on? This movie just flaps along, presenting one disjointed scene after another, and characters you're never encouraged to care about in scenes that fall flat and look drab and ugly. The presence of the dynamic and almost always insanely fun Steve Railsback (soon to appear in "The Devil's Rejects") is barely noticed. It all becomes dull as a white color crayon very quickly with no gore, no tension, no logic and no story to speak of. This is why God invented the fast forward button. Or better yet, the "Stop" button. Put in another movie--any other movie--and enjoy a good evening's entertainment.

I have a feeling this was cobbled together from the remains of several other movies somehow, like how Roger Corman's "Hollywood Blvd," which this resembles in a weird way, was assembled. I hadn't seen this for years, saw it for a buck on VHS and promptly recorded Scooby-Doo cartoons over it so it would have SOME value anyway...

A Bit on the Dull Side

[glenmatisse · 4/10 · 22 July 2020]

A lousy slasher, but there are a few endearing characters and it works better as a made for TV mystery type thing. There's not a lot of blood or gore or scary sequences, but it's ok if you want something cozier. Unfortunately, it's hard to see much of anything due to the muddy, dark VHS transfer.

The game is trying to stay awake.

[mark.waltz · 1/10 · 12 March 2023]

I thought with the opening of this with a board game and a hand with a black love moving a game piece around (with Dracula's name on the board inducating where his house was) that this would be Is interesting, nut boy was I wrong. One of the worst slasher movies I've ever seen, simply because there Isn't enough slashing going on, and for me, a non-slasher movie fan, that detail being absent must have been quite obvious. My thought went to fans who like slasher movies and how they would react to this being so unexciting and pointless, a real waste of time for leads Jo Ann Harris, Alexandra Morgan, Sam Groom and Steve Railsback. Yes, June Lockhart is there, probably doing someone she knew a favor by appearing in her one saying. There's a lot of gratuitous nudity, way too much chit chat and not enough knife swiping which is the purpose of movies like this. If the knife was as dull as this film ends being, it couldn't even cut through unrefrigetated butter.

"What do you want? Do you want to rape me............?"

[blurnieghey · 2/10 · 27 August 2022]

Lest we forget that 1982 was still part of the Golden Age of slasher flicks, thus making this dull turd of a movie all that much more inexcusable. As others have mentioned, the film starts out OK, at which point we are introduced to the main character who is annoying as hell, subjecting the viewer to some of the most insipid female chit-chat and annoying attempts at wittiness this side of Gilmore Girls for no reason at all, as it adds nothing and only detracts from this tepid attempt at a slasher flick. You already know one or both of the clowns she is hanging around with are either doing the killings or at least in on it, so the whole boring mess just drags out until you get to one of the most retarded endings I've seen since Master Blaster, only with Master Blaster there is actually a resolution. It works good as a sleep aid, though--I could barely keep my eyes open and probably shouldn't have.

Way Too Stagey - Minor Spoilers

[jkevinstevens · 4/10 · 31 May 2022]

It's almost as if the writer were projecting, "I have written for off-off-Broadway!!" And so, the actors can't even inhabit these stilted characters. They do what they can with it, but the writer is also the director here, and they had to place their trust in him, which turned out bad.

That being said, despite all the talking and talking, Jo Ann Harris is fun to watch as Keegan, the murders are pretty grim, and the cleaned-up video looks passable (I believe the old VHS copy must have been a bad transfer, from what I've read in the reviews here), and the camerawork, while not the least bit showy, is at least competent.

It's funny because I remember passing this by, flipping channels, during the pool scene when the film was still very new, and the weirdness of that scene stuck with me for some reason - and then here it is in this turkey! Also, one of the murder set pieces near the end is a direct ripoff of a much older film, called 'Terrified' (1963), but done effectively enough.

So, four stars. This could have been a decent film with a rewrite or three. The first of the double-twist endings was predictable, and the second one seemed to be just tacked on as an afterthought, but Harris is fun to watch.

Lethargic Semi-Slasher

[tysonrowlands · 5/10 · 11 May 2022]

It's hard to tell what the intent behind Deadly Games was. At its best, it works as a small town mystery/romance/soap opera, but most of the scenes meant to be suspenseful or scary come across as undercooked and like the filmmakers didn't have their heart in it.

Not A Game You'll Want to Play

[joanclarke-81661 · 4/10 · 30 April 2023]

Jo Ann Harris makes a charming leading character in a film that feels more like a dull TV movie of the week with extra helpings of nudity and a brief flash of violence here and there to turn into something worth of a theatrical release. While the attention paid on small town dynamics and characters is appreciated, the story gets convoluted and spends too much time on characters or subplots that either go nowhere or are painfully uninteresting. For a horror/thriller, there's not even one frightening or intense sequence in the film and all the attack scenes lack energy. The abrupt and confusing ending is the final nail in the film's coffin. Not one you need to make any time for or go out of your way to find.

A Horror version of the Room

[adam_sandler_rox22 · 8/10 · 24 October 2023]

Terrible script, odd choices in reaction, it's overall a bad movie, but the acting is okay. The script was everywhere and broken in some places. Watching this gave me the same vibes as The Room. It's so bad that I found it fun to watch. Some of the lines they say are just baffling. There's a scene in the beginning where there's a character thinking she's going to be assaulted and tells her attacker it's okay, she'll enjoy it. There is an insane amount of female nudity, but there are some gem lines in here like "How do you like going through life crotch first?" And "No I don't look like Janet Leigh! I need to have a shower or no more dates for Keegan". The ending is also just as bad as the rest of the movie.

Anyway, if you like The Room, I highly recommend Deadly Games. If you can't stand terrible movies like The Room, don't waste your time because I doubt you'll like this one. I love watching The Room and I thoroughly enjoyed watching Deadly Games for the same reasons. 8/10 Will definitely watch again, but again, watch at your own risk.