“Stupid Games” delivers an intriguing premise, but it doesn’t play its hand as deftly as possible, resulting in a missed opportunity.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Jumanji Gone Horror sounds like a really interesting and unique concept, and it’s surprising no one has attempted this yet. It’s the perfect premise to become a standout indie horror. Unfortunately, Stupid Games ends up missing the mark and falling flat.
Directed and written by Nicolas Wendl and Dani Abraham (with Tanner Adams sharing a writing credit), the film follows Saxon (Saad Rolando) and his roommate/ best friend Rex (Gage Robinson). They are heading to a dinner party hosted by Celeste (Alyssa Tortomasi), who turns out to be Saxon’s one-night stand. After ghosting him all of a sudden, she reaches out and invites him to a dinner party, but there’s one rule: he needs to bring two friends.
When one invitee bails at the last minute, they settle for a maintenance worker, Stanley (Grant Terzakis).
Celeste, along with her friends Riley (Cass Huckabay) and Mia (Ashwini Ganpule), suggests that when the power goes out, they all play a spooky board game. Of course, this unleashes the predictable malevolent deadly force.
My first complaint is that the characters are so unlikeable, bordering on hard to watch.
Saxon and Rex are misogynistic, cringe-worthy men. They are obnoxious and narcissistic. The women are played up just to be sexual objects with vapid personalities.
The saving grace was Terzakis as Stanley. He brings some Jeffery Combs energy and tends to eat up the rest of the cast. Obviously, they are all newcomers to acting, and the scriptwriting doesn’t do them any favors, so we can’t place all the blame on the performances. Still, it was incredibly offputting at times.
With that said, it’s clear there was love poured into this low-budget horror comedy, so I don’t want to keep beating up on it.
It’s not all bad. The cinematography was executed perfectly for its budget; it felt like a cozy Halloween film lit by candlelight. There’s some solid tension with decent scares. Unfortunately, it takes a while to get going, and it ends up feeling like we are speeding furiously to the end. There were ample opportunities to trim some of the fat and better pace the action.
By the time we get to the film’s ending, viewers are left completely confused.
Ultimately, there’s a good film—perhaps even a really good film—just waiting for the pieces to be arranged better on the board. The concept is strong, and the production values are surprisingly solid for a low-budget film. It just needs a more fleshed-out story, a more polished script, and better characterization to turn this into a winning game.
As it stands now, it’s not bad for a horror film you can put on when you don’t want to focus too much and have a bit of time to kill.
You can watch it for free on Tubi.
Overall Rating (Out of 5 Butterflies): 3
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