“I’m not playing god, I’m playing the Game of Death!”
Game of Death recently screened at Fantasia, and I was lucky enough to catch the premiere of the webseries-turned-feature film by Montreal filmmakers Sebastien Landry and Laurence Baz Morais. The film, produced by La Guerrilla (Montreal), Rockzeline (Paris) and Blackpills (Paris), combines heaping portions of nostalgia with plenty of gore to deliver what will no doubt be a cult hit once it’s released on to the masses.
The film has a group of Millennials discovering The Game of Death, which innocuously enough looks like a board game that fell out of the ‘90s, during a drug fueled pool party. After reading the rules that seem to imply in some form or another “kill or be killed,” they decide why the hell not and sit down to play the game. After they place their thumbs on the board to activate the game and they’re pricked with their blood, activating a timer, you get the feeling something might not be quite right. The teens soon discover that unless they kill someone before the timer clicks down a number, one of their heads will randomly explode in a rather insanely bloody fashion, kinda like Gantz. So the kids are forced to kill random strangers to get their body count up as dissension spreads through their ranks.
The Game of Death uses the all too familiar genre trope of a group of people placed into an extraordinary circumstances and being forced to kill with amazing effectiveness. This, coupled with a razor sharp sense of humor and a group of characters you can’t wait to see die, makes Game of Death feel like Battle Royale meets Jumanji. In its brief 74 minute runtime the film constantly keeps attempting to ramp up the violence and pitch black humor to keep up with the film’s frantic visual style. From changing aspect ratios to turning into an 8-Bit video game, it’s this manic mix that keeps the film’s high-octane energy going to up until the film’s bitter standoff in a retirement hospital.
Sebastien Landry and Laurence Baz Morais do a great job at keeping the focus on the action and laughs while not bothering to get lost in the details or exposition, which works for the narrative they’re crafting here. I think the way the film effortlessly flows from act to act also keeps the audience from asking too many questions about these millennials on a murderspree. The actors do a great job at imbuing their roles with enough nihilism and narcissism to make sure none of them will ever be missed. That combined with a ton of blood and some impressive gore effect makes Game of Death a solid horror flick that is way more fun than I was expecting. It’s short and sweet and to the point and makes you want to play again.