Set in San Francisco in 1975, the film follows George Manning (Seymour Cassel) a successful Bay Area businessman with a wife and two children. After receiving a call from the grandparents regarding their son having appendicitis, George's wife takes off to attend leaving George alone at home on his 40th birthday. On his first night alone during a rain storm, two young women Jackson and Donna (Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp) arrive at George's home with claims they are lost and ask for shelter. George allows this, but after the two seduce him and entice him into a threeway, the following morning things take a darker turn as the two subject George to blackmail and torture of psychological and physical nature.
1977s death game is one of a number of low budget exploitation films that was produced simultaneously by real estate magnate Peter S. Traynor after previously producing projects like Steel Arena and Truck Stop Women. Traynor worked primarily as a producer on these films, he did venture into the director's chair on two occasions with Death Game and Evil Town 10 years later. For a first time effort Traynor shows reasonable sure handedness behind the camera making a film that seems well made despite a lack of experience behind the camera, but it tests your patience with abrasive characterizations and repetitive meandering structure.
The movie has a decent enough premise with a family man getting seduced into infidelity with two young attractive women only for the care free lovemaking leading to a horrific experience, and the setup is quite good establishing itself. But once the setup happens, it's basically variations on the same scene happening over and over again. Once George sleeps with Jackson and Donna they start revealing their true selves as liars, manipulators, and gleeful sadists who take no shortage of pleasure in making messes and shrieking and laughing at the top of their lungs. Even when things get supposedly more intense with George bound and faced with potentially life threatening injuries Jackson and Donna continue engaging in over the top shrieking mischief and there's so little done to create a variation on that it becomes a chore to sit through. With that said, there are some good points in the film's favor. Sondra Locke despite being aggravatingly annoying there are moments where Locke can become quite threatening and intimidating with standouts such as a scene where she threatens reporting George for statutory rape or a Kangaroo Court consisting of herself and Donna in the film's third act. The movie has a good twist on typically women in peril roles with a man who's reasonably secure in his masculinity and success at the mercy of two women, but aside from maybe a criticism that men are somehow responsible for their creation (with some not so subtle hints of molestation and absenteeism given by Jackson and Donna), it doesn't really have much beyond that.
Death Game is a cut above your average exploitation film thanks to a somewhat more subversive approach to a well trodden ground, but a repetitive structure and leads who are either bland or aggravating make this a challenging sit. It's got good elements to it, but a lack of polish makes them harder to appreciate.
1977s death game is one of a number of low budget exploitation films that was produced simultaneously by real estate magnate Peter S. Traynor after previously producing projects like Steel Arena and Truck Stop Women. Traynor worked primarily as a producer on these films, he did venture into the director's chair on two occasions with Death Game and Evil Town 10 years later. For a first time effort Traynor shows reasonable sure handedness behind the camera making a film that seems well made despite a lack of experience behind the camera, but it tests your patience with abrasive characterizations and repetitive meandering structure.
The movie has a decent enough premise with a family man getting seduced into infidelity with two young attractive women only for the care free lovemaking leading to a horrific experience, and the setup is quite good establishing itself. But once the setup happens, it's basically variations on the same scene happening over and over again. Once George sleeps with Jackson and Donna they start revealing their true selves as liars, manipulators, and gleeful sadists who take no shortage of pleasure in making messes and shrieking and laughing at the top of their lungs. Even when things get supposedly more intense with George bound and faced with potentially life threatening injuries Jackson and Donna continue engaging in over the top shrieking mischief and there's so little done to create a variation on that it becomes a chore to sit through. With that said, there are some good points in the film's favor. Sondra Locke despite being aggravatingly annoying there are moments where Locke can become quite threatening and intimidating with standouts such as a scene where she threatens reporting George for statutory rape or a Kangaroo Court consisting of herself and Donna in the film's third act. The movie has a good twist on typically women in peril roles with a man who's reasonably secure in his masculinity and success at the mercy of two women, but aside from maybe a criticism that men are somehow responsible for their creation (with some not so subtle hints of molestation and absenteeism given by Jackson and Donna), it doesn't really have much beyond that.
Death Game is a cut above your average exploitation film thanks to a somewhat more subversive approach to a well trodden ground, but a repetitive structure and leads who are either bland or aggravating make this a challenging sit. It's got good elements to it, but a lack of polish makes them harder to appreciate.