Deadly Games (1982)

Sometimes your instincts steer you right and sometimes they steer you wrong. And sometimes you aren’t quite sure about the end result. That happened to me with Deadly Games, a film released onto shiny disc format that, much like my says of browsing in the video stores, drew me in with an intriguing cover design.

The plot is very simple. A masked killer is picking off women in a small town. He also seems to spend a lot of his time playing a home-made board game that can help direct his urges (I guess). Can Roger (a police officer, played by Sam Groom) and Keegan (Jo Ann Harris) catch the killer before it is too late, and before Keegan suffers the same fate as her sister? And is it anything to do with the strange Billy Owens (Steve Railsback)?

With some gratuitous nudity early on, and a couple of impressive and deadly set-pieces interspersed throughout the runtime, Deadly Games is certainly a film that most slasher movie fans will want to check out at least once. Whether it is worth a repeat viewing, however, is a different matter entirely. There’s something worthwhile here, an attempt to play by the rules while also toying with viewers, but there are also numerous scenes that have characters chatting to one another in a way that feels like it is just being done to pad out the runtime.

Writer-director Scott Mansfield doesn’t have much in his filmography at all, and this was his first film, but he shows a certain degree of competence when it comes to a few of the more memorable moments. There’s a swimming pool scene here that ranks up there alongside the best in the genre, for my money, and it is clear that Mansfield tries to make the most out of what he has available to him. If only Mansfield the writer was as good as Mansfield the director, this could have been a minor classic of the sub-genre.

Harris is a fine leading lady, although she’s weighed down by the weaker performance from Groom. Railsback does just fine, despite the limitations of his role, and certainly adds value to genre fans. Elsewhere, the cast is eclectic enough to include Colleen Camp, Dick Butkus, Denise Galik, Saul Sindell, and many others. Very few people are doing their best work, but most of them are just fine for what the movie is.

A mixed bag of good and bad, with most of the bad coming from the script, what you have here is a lesser slasher movie that has enough curiosity value, and strangeness, to make it worth your time.

6/10

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The Night They Saved Christmas (1984)

So there's an oil company drilling in a number of different Arctic site and one of those sites is situated far too close to Santa's village, meaning that the drilling has caused some problems and any blasting could cause permanent, major damage. It could mean the end of Christmas. Which is why one elf heads out, chats to one of the workers, and then takes his family on a trip to see Santa with their own eyes. If they can see what's at stake then maybe they can help to convince the oil company to relocate.

I wasn't sure what to expect when The Night They Saved Christmas began. After all, it was all about a small group of folk trying to interrupt a major American company drilling for oil. And one small, loyal figure effectively kidnaps the family of one important figure. Would this be a tinsel-covered predecessor to Syriana?

Of course not. Instead, this is a pleasant, old-fashioned, look at Santa Claus (played here by Art Carney) and the work that goes in to making Christmas happen. Jim Moloney and David Niven Jr. are the two main writers who have fun building this winter wonderland, throwing in a number of nice details and enjoyable explanations for the magic that we all know must be used to make Christmas happen. Director Jackie Cooper does okay, even willing to throw in some stop-motion effects to realise some of the sights on display. Yet he can't quite strike the right balance, meaning that the film moves from moments of wonderment to moments of tedium (pretty much any scene set in the world of the oil workers) to moments of cringe-inducing awfulness.

Paul Williams is the main elf, Ed, who makes everything happen, and he's okay in his role. Well, he's a bit irritating and patronising, but as he's playing an elf it feels unfair to put all of the blame on the actor without considering the notes he may have been given for the performance required. Jaclyn Smith is the mother who allows herself and her children to be taken away by this diminutive would-be-kidnapper, and she does fine. Carney is a decent Santa, June Lockhart makes a good Mrs. Claus, and Paul Le Mat and Mason Adams are both acceptable enough as the two main men in charge of the drilling, with the former also being the husband of Smith's character (making it more urgent for him to discover just where the hell his wife and kids have disappeared to).

To give credit where it's due, this tries to show the nuts and bolts, figuratively speaking, of just how a magical Christmas is created. With a bit more care, and less time spent in the world of the oil workers, this could have been a minor classic. It even feels like a warm-up for Santa Claus at times, which isn't a bad thing.

Sadly, it just doesn't do enough to lift it above the level of average. That doesn't mean that it's not worth a watch. I'd certainly recommend it ahead of many other movies that you'll see scheduled throughout December. I just can't see a viewing of it ever becoming a recurring yuletide tradition.

5/10

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Holiday In Handcuffs (2007)

If Holiday In Handcuffs was a layer of snow outside your front door on Christmas morning it would be yellow. It's a bad, lazy and unfunny film that doesn't even try to treat viewers as if they have more than two braincells (which may, in fact, be the case by the time the end credits roll). The plot is this - Melissa Joan Hart plays Trudie, a young woman who is due to take her boyfriend home with her for Christmas until he dumps her. This would normally be a bad thing to happen but for Trudie it's a bad thing coming after a number of bad things and she snaps. She just can't face going to visit her parents alone and so, of course, she kidnaps a man (David, played by Mario Lopez) and forces him to pretend that he is her boyfriend for the duration of the holiday trip. David is quite the catch and Trudie's mother and father (Markie Post and Timothy Bottoms, respectively) are happy to have him with them for their seasonal celebrations, even if he does react to uncomfortable social situations by "pretending" to be a kidnap victim.

I think that even that last sentence lets you know just how awful this film is. Yes, viewers are supposed to just accept that characters in this movie will believe that someone would pretend to be a kidnap victim as some strange joke they make when things get a little awkward.

Director Ron Underwood has fallen so far and it's sad to see. I mean, he's the guy who directed Tremors and City Slickers at the start of the 1990s and then he bottomed out, I suppose, with The Adventures Of Pluto Nash (which I've not seen yet, I'm simply going by its reputation) before concentrating on TV shows and TV movies like this one. Concentrating on TV shows and TV movies isn't the worst thing for a director to do but making something that stinks as badly as this is. It's not all Underwood's fault though, as the worst parts are the overall premise, thought up by scriptwriter Sara Endsley, and the increasing lack of plausibility and logic in every scene.

It doesn't help that the cast isn't great either. I've seen Melissa Joan Hart be a lot worse than she is here (in that awful Nine Dead, to cite the best example) but she's still pretty awful, as is Mario Lopez. The pair of them aren't helped, of course, by that script but it would still have been nice to see some chemistry or charm or just anything showing a spark of life in those dull eyes. Markie Post, Timothy Bottoms, June Lockhart (as grandma) and Layla Alizada (playing Trudie's friend) all fare a bit better but they're pulled down by the quicksand script. Kyle Howard and Vanessa Lee Evigan are stuck in the same boat while playing Trudie's brother and sister and I feel most sorry for Howard, who almost drags himself above the effluence in one or two moments but can't quite rinse off the bad smell. I went too far with my analogies in this paragraph but at least it saved me from having to use profane language.

I disliked Holiday In Handcuffs from, pretty much, start to finish. There were perhaps three or four moments that made me smile. Those few moments save it from an even lower rating.

3/10

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