The Friendship Game

As I stumbled upon this 2022 sci-fi horror movie "The Friendship Game" in 2023, I opted to watch it because it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, and also because it had Peyton List on the cast list.

I had not actually heard about this movie prior to watching it, so I didn't know what I was in for. So writer Damien Ober and director Scooter Corkle had every chance to impress and bedazzle me.

And they both failed to do so. Sure, "The Friendship Game" was sort of watchable I suppose, but it wasn't really a movie that appealed much to me. The storyline was just not really all that interesting, and as the narrative proceded at a rather slow and dull pace, it was getting more and more difficult to maintain interest in the storyline.

The acting performances in "The Friendship Game" were fair enough, though I wasn't really impressed with it. And as for Peyton List, well then she was much better in "Cobra Kai" than she was here in "The Friendship Game".

For a horror movie then "The Friendship Game" just didn't cut it for me. Having grown up watching horror movies for about 40 plus some years, then this movie just didn't really had the contents that mattered. I am sure that newcomers to the horror genre might get a kick out of this movie.

My rating of "The Friendship Game" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Zooza (Peyton List), Rob Plattier (Brendan Meyer), Courtney (Kelcey Mawema), and Cotton Allen (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) are longtime small town best friends. They are set to scatter after graduation. Cotton buys the mysterious Friendship Game at a yard sale. The friends have to tell their deepest secret desires. Their friendship survives if they survive. Cotton disappears and the friends' desires start coming true. There is also a hacker who recorded their game session.

The plot is a mess. My first suggestion is to get rid of the computer hacker. I don't get his character. In addition, the simple gameplay gets muddied by bad story telling. It's all a mess. There is a simple idea here somewhere. It's not necessarily a good horror idea, but more clarity would help this movie a lot.

The real friendship game is asking your friends to watch this and then seeing if they remain friends with you.

This starts off fine, but within 5 minutes it goes downhill into a confusing poorly written and directed mess. It is so difficult to figure out what is going on: Is this real? Is this a flashback? Is this a flashforward? Certain scenes will replay again line for line or scenes will repeat with slight variations. The movie continues on being like this until it reaches its conclusion which ends up being even worse than the rest of the movie. Multiple people were involved in this movie: someone actually wrote this garbage, someone else directed it and along the way no one involved said anything about how bad it was.

Maybe there's an alternate timeline/universe where this is a good movie.

I couldn't tell if this convoluted attempt to create a film was the fault of of the director or the writer, because the results of both are just so bad. Firstly the story makes no sense. Well it started with an idea, about an object that magically tests friendships, but after that it falls apart. Yes it literally falls apart after the first five minutes of the movie. The story meanders, gets weird and confusing and seems like the writer didn't know how to get the beginning of the story, to the end of the story. All the loose ends, and questions this film leaves are just frustrating, especially the question " How the heck did this film even get made?!!!". It's like someone who starts telling you something interesting and just stops mid-sentence and stares into space. The choices in scenes and how they were put together are dumbfounding and just add to the idea that the writer had no idea where this story was going. Jumping from one idea to another and adding elements that make you wonder what they're really trying to accomplish- which it looks like they don't even know. I couldn't even finish it, it was so bad, but watched it on fast forward to see if there was anything worth continuing, and even that was a waste of time. Don't bother wasting your time, just unwatchable.

This film escapes the trappings of most teen horror films. Even so, this does not make the film more likable. A refreshing aspect of the film shows 4 high school kids that have been life long friends without a focus on social media idiocy. It's almost a nod to the days where you spent time with people rather than sit with people while on your phone. From here it jumps into the horror that will be bestowed upon the bunch. Ultimately there is only one friendship that matters. Rather than look at the film and dissect every single syllable uttered on screen I will close by stating that this is exactly what it is billed to be, a horror movie about testing friendship. It's not a movie you must watch but if you do you'll be slightly entertained.