The film starts off as any proper slasher film should - with an opening scene murder. The quality of the VHS I have is poor, so I couldn't see everything that happened during it, but it was a good attempt at creating intensity. After the first kill, we get introduced to the police investigating the crime as well as the victim's sister Keegan (a reporter) who had left the town years prior. A lot of the middle portion of the film is Keegan seeing some old friends who still live in town and reconnecting with them. There are some scenes with a creepy theatre manager named Billy mixed in as well to create suspicion. The town's main police officer is also a suspect, and some of the movie is spent showing the female lead (Keegan) falling for him despite the fact that he is married. A few of the other women in the town are killed off leading to Keegan facing off against the murderer.
Deadly Games could have been so much better. It has some great things going for it; a killer wearing a black ski mask, cool movie title, decent plot... but the makers of "Deadly Games" add so much unnecessary filler that it becomes quite a bore. We get scenes of the character's playing sports and having a party, which are really pointless by the end of it all. There is also one strange choice by the director of "Deadly Games", for some reason he has Keegan act as if she doesn't even care that her sister died. She just comes back to town and is all cheery with her friends and mother. Oh, there is this strange two minute musical montage of Keegan and the two suspects playing a board game, pretty much the only connection the film has to it's title next to the fact that we see the killer playing around with the board game on one or two occasions. They could have done so much more with it, but they didn't.
Acting wasn't that bad, I like that the Keegan character is different from your regular/ordinary slasher film heroine. The ending was ridiculous and insulting in a way. You spend the whole hour and a half watching it for.. that? Anyways, I'd recommend this strictly to horror completests. It drags on way too much, and because of that you lose focus and lose interest.
4/10
