Death Game (1977)

A businessman whose family is away on his birthday picks up two young girls. He takes them to his house, where they seduce him. Afterwards, however, they tie him up, torture him, trash his ... See full summary »

Director:

Peter S. Traynor

Writers:

Anthony Overman, Michael Ronald Ross

Stars:

Sondra Locke, Colleen Camp, Seymour Cassel

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Sondra Locke	...	Agatha Jackson
Colleen Camp	...	Donna
Seymour Cassel	...	George Manning
Beth Brickell	...	Karen Manning
Michael Kalmansohn	...	Deliveryboy
Ruth Warshawsky	...	Mrs. Grossman

Storyline

A businessman whose family is away on his birthday picks up two young girls. He takes them to his house, where they seduce him. Afterwards, however, they tie him up, torture him, trash his house, and then kill a delivery boy.

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Plot Keywords:

delivery boy | torture | jailbait | 15 year old | sex with a minor | 

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Taglines:

The object is to stay alive.

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Genres:

Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

May 1977 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Seducers

Filming Locations:

Hancock Park, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

First American Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Voice of Seymour Cassel's character is dubbed; he was reportedly so unhappy during shooting (per Sondra Locke's autobiography) he refused to participate in necessary post production dubbing.

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Connections

Referenced in Ban the Sadist Videos! (2005)

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Soundtracks

"We're Home"
Written by Guy Hemric
Music by Jimmie Haskell
Performed by Maxine Weldon

User Reviews

Great movie--where do I get the soundtrack?

A middle-aged husband and father left alone on his 40th birthday decides to celebrate it with two 20-year-old hitch-hikers he lets in his house on a stormy night. After a steamy, delirious three-way sex scene in a bathtub, the two girls claim that they are both underage and reveal themselves to be obviously psychotic as they destroy his house and torment him with increasing violence. You have to hand it to the movies. In real life it is almost always the older men abusing young women, but in movies like this of course it's always the opposite. Someone once described this as "a middle-aged male sex fantasy gone wrong". That seems like a pretty accurate description.

On the plus side the story is never COMPLETELY unbelievable, although if it had been based on true story, you definitely would have heard the story. The acting is good. Seymour Cassell is always good even if he's rarely the lead. Colleen Camp brightened up both small roles in many big-budget movies and larger roles in many low-budget movies in the '70's. She's good here as always and has a few surprising nude scenes. Even Sondra Locke is pretty good (ironically, years later Locke would sue ex-husband Clint Eastwood for ruining her career--well, this is the kind of stuff she was doing before she met him).

On the negative side this story is still pretty unbelievable. The antics of the two girls are often more annoying (for both the protagonist and the viewer) than truly frightening. There's some gratuitous animal cruelty (and delivery boy cruelty). Worst of all, is the song "Good Old Dad", which as annoying as it is, is ironically appropriate to the movie at least, but the filmmakers insist on playing it at length again and again and again. It reminded me of the similar Umberto Lenzi-Carroll Baker film "Paranoia" where the villains try to drive the heroine insane by playing one annoying song repeatedly, except that it's not part of the plot here--the filmmakers are doing it to the viewers. I wonder if there is a soundtrack to this movie available. If so it probably a double LP of this one song playing over and over and over. The movie also features one of the most ridiculous deus ex machina endings since "The Bad Seed" (and it is also surprisingly similar to the ending of the English-language version of "Paranoia"). And look what's written on the side of the truck in the last scene. I guess they didn't didn't think too much of that thing with the cat.