All Fun and Games

Regardless of how weak the story is. The sound for me made it almost unwatchable I have a state of the art sound system a sony bravia oled tv And while it looked great the mix made Me have to adjust volume constantly Even with dialoge enhancement on .or off i tried it all the levels were so bad I thought the acting was good considering what they had to do or say I so wanted to like this A rather interesting idea for a horror movie. Not the same 4 friends in a remote cabin, or found footage garbage. The premise had promise but alas did not live up to the movie i had in my head Oh well. They tried.

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.

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.

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.

When I sat down to watch the 2023 horror movie "All Fun and Games" here in 2024, I had never actually heard about it. But I was drawn to it, given its cover. And of course with it being a horror movie that I hadn't seen, then I would take the time to sit down and watch it.

Writers J. J. Braider, Eren Celeboglu add Ari Costa put together a fair enough script. It certainly was an entertaining enough movie, though I have to say that it wasn't really a script that brought much of anything new to the horror genre. Now, that doesn't make "All Fun and Games" a poor movie, far from it, but it just was contents that has been seen and done before in other movies. But I will say that "All Fun and Games" was entertaining enough for what it turned out to be.

Of the entire cast ensemble in the movie, I was only familiar with actress Annabeth Gish. It should be noted, however, that the acting performances in the movie were good. And they did have a great cast ensemble put together for the various roles and characters.

The effects in the movie are fairly good. It wasn't a movie that relied heavily on special effects though, for better or worse. So you're not in for 76 minutes of extraordinary special effects galore, if that is your thing.

While "All Fun and Games" was a watchable movie, it is hardly a movie that I will return to watch a second time. I will say, though, that the movie is worth sitting down and watching if you are a hardcore horror fan.

My rating of "All Fun and Games" lands on a five out of ten stars.