Gathered together for a special party, a group of friends forced to play a demented version of The Naughty List are soon subjected to a string of deaths based on the order of their placement in the game at the hands of a demented elf doll and must find a way to stop it from spreading,
This was an absolutely awful effort without much going for it. About the only positive featured here is the sense of the attack scenes where the possessed friend gets under the influence of the doll or the game and is sent on their own forced assassination command. This sole concept alone is the main factor to like as the central idea does provide some decently-handled sequences involving the characters coming across a scenario where they obey the supernatural voices in their head to follow the game or suffer the consequences. The idea of this has some charm and manages to come up unexpectedly enough for it to be quite chilling in concept but is too wasted to be of much positive virtue. There are plenty of issues to be had here. The concept of the game here makes no sense, as how the demonic temptation works, or what the doll actually means, as these issues are completely unrelated to what's going on here. The intent behind the game is completely missing with the group being supposedly friends so that being immediately thrust into it with no explanation about who they are, what the game is about, or why they should play it makes for a game with no stake or reason to care. Since the group is then immediately thrust into these accidents that are said to be the result of the demonic temptation of the doll being put to use for the game, but it has no connection for anything, the plotline is a general mess with nothing making sense or drawing the viewer in. On top of that, there's nothing else here physically to draw a viewer in as there are scores of issues here. The confusing story might have had some life to it if there were some kind of interest in what's happening to their friends but the whole thing has just such a disconnected air to it that it kills any momentum. The inclusion of the masked killer results in overlong, static stalking scenes with flimsy effects, a Snapchat filter that's supposed to represent a possession, and lame deaths featuring very little bloodshed. There are too many instances of the groups' resources being limited by the low-budget origins that come about way too often here that run throughout the whole film so that it doesn't have much in the way of killer doll action with these outside elements holding it back considerably.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.
