All Fun and Games

We visit Salom again in yet another low budget horror fling.

This time our young star of the film Jo, finds a knife made from a human bone after breaking into an old eerie shack. Oh he finds a book of chants and spell like things aswell.

Well you get the drift of it all then. Lights flicker and spooky voices are heard after he takes them home. It's all very predictable from there. Someone gets possessed and chases everyone whilst pulling funny faces and walking like he's shat himself. Ghosts of witches past make the odd appearance to add to the atmosphere and people die All very predictable.

Hard-core horror fans may find something to like,but it was all a bit samey for me.

This movie makes me ask one question: HOW? How are the Russo Brothers - respectable filmmakers- Executive Producers on this dud? How did someone get Natalie Dyer, Asa Butterfield, AND Annabeth Gish to sign on to this lame project? How did a script this bad ever get greenlit? How did it somehow gross over a million dollars globally when it should have never been anywhere near a theater? We will never know the answers to these questions. What we DO know is this is a first rate turd of a movie with zero redeeming qualities other than it is mercifully short. Even the sound stinks in this trash. Stay away.

The plot of this film is incredibly infantile.

Adolescent finds knife haunted by demonic children.

Demonic children use knife to possess his brother.

Brother forces his acquaintances to play games, in which the only winner is the one who survives.

The target market here seems to be somewhere between kids and young teenagers.

But it's too violent for young children.

And too childish for teenagers.

So it fits into that medium where no one is bound to like it.

Being a Canadian...I wanted to enjoy this, if only because it has the kid from Son Of A Critch in it.

But the plot is way too bad.

The character development is lackluster.

And there's too much lead up before the action kicks in.

Which ends as abruptly as it begins.

And they can't even get through a damn game ffs.

There's really nothing to like about it, to be honest.

Other than it being relatively short.

So you don't have to waste too much of your life indulging in it.

But that's about all it has going for it.

Other than decent production quality.

2.5 out of 10.

Kathy Fletcher (Annabeth Gish) is a single mom to Jo, Billie (Natalia Dyer), and Marcus (Asa Butterfield). Their father had sobered up and left the family. They live in their longtime home in Salem. Jo finds a cursed knife. One night, he demands that the group play a game.

This is basically just Asa Butterfield cutting up people with that knife. It's not actually scary or compelling at all. It rather boring. Eren Celeboglu and Ari Costa are the writing/directing team. This seems to be their first full length feature. Everybody has to start somewhere. Not everyone can hit the first pitch out of the park. Let's hope that they do better next time.

On paper, All fun and Games has what should make up a good horror film; a cast of young rising star actors, a setting seeped with supernatural history and an interesting curse. However it ultimately falls flat.

The whole length of the film is only an hour and 15 minutes, barely constituting an actual film. The characters are introduced in a quick narration that basically should have been the opening 15 minutes if it hadn't been rushed. The dialogue from the possessed individuals is more silly than terrifying and the whole "I will play, I won't quit" doesn't really sound like something they'd say in the 1600s.

Trying to fit the kills into the form of some disturbed games just takes away their potential to be violent or original. It also binds the evil spirit in rules that are ultimately completely ridiculous. The only reason it's even getting a 3/10 is because I like the cast and this was not exactly their best work.