Deadly Games (1982)

Director:

Scott Mansfield

Writer:

Scott Mansfield (writer)

Genre:

Mystery

Tagline:

Only He Will Hear Your Scream!

Plot:

A town is being terrorized by a masked killer who is murdering women. A young woman is attacked by the killer but escapes...

Plot Keywords:

Nude Woman Murdered | Drowning | Female Nudity | Strangulation | Woman Drowned

Cast

Jo Ann Harris	...	Clarissa Jane Louise 'Keegan' Lawrence
Sam Groom	...	Roger Lane
Steve Railsback	...	Billy Owens
Dick Butkus	...	Joe Adams
Denise Galik	...	Mary Adams
Colleen Camp	...	Randy
Robin Hoff	...	Carol Bailey
Christine L. Tudor	...	Chris Howlett (as Christine Tudor)
June Lockhart	...	Marge Lawrence
Alexandra Morgan	...	Linda Lawrence
Saul Sindell	...	Tom
Jeri Lea Ray	...	Susan Theresa 'Sooty' Lane (as Jere Lea Rae)
William Johnson	...	Bob Bailey (as Bill Johnson)

Also Known As:

The Eliminator (USA) (TV title)
Who Fell Asleep

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Australia:R | USA:R | UK:AA

Company:

Great Plains Films

Quotes:

Clarissa Jane Louise 'Keegan' Lawrence: Do you always kiss strange people?
Roger Lane: No, you're the strangest.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Trick or Treats (1982)

Deadly boredom.

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.