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Fatal Games (1984)

Dir: Michael Elliot

The athletes at a sports academy are being targeted by a cowled, javelin wielding psycho.
Will any of the sporty teens make it to ‘The Nationals’ or will they all be given the shaft?….

 

“Take it all the way” go the blasted out lyrics during the opening credit’s song of much 80’s cheesiness.
“Take it to the limit” they scream, pumping us up for some of those “Fatal games”!
The 80’s…The 80’s…Oh boy, this flick is most certainly from the 80‘s.
From the multicoloured fluffy leg warmers on display (that even an Eskimo would consider a step too far) to the big ozone layer killing hairstyles to the endless white y-fronts flaunted around, that barely contain the hairy meatballs within, we are most definitely in the 80’s.

But do not fear! Because the 80’s, despite the faults, was still populated by comely young ladies and groovy Slasher deaths.
As such many soapy breast and pubic hair shots liven the less than gripping opening minutes of this low budget Slasher entry before the first kill (which, like all of them, is signposted by the ominous electronic music cues long before it actually happens) but what a doozy of a first kill it is!
Watch in admiration as the victim literally flies out of shot as the javelin impales her onto the wall! Yeah! Now we’re “Taking it to the limit” all right.
The next murder is also a good 'un as we have some honest to goodness steel through flesh FX on display to create a rather nasty little scene.
So far, so good.
But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing of course and as more ‘death by javelin’ scenes occur a certain weariness starts to creep into the very moments that should be where a Slasher film perks up.
This is purely down to the fact that the ’how and with what’ aspect of Slasher movie deaths is part of the fun. Here we generally know how and we certainly know with what.
The set-ups do try to add a dash of freshness to each death though (check out the swimming pool murder) and given that the movie opts for a projectile weapon of choice means it’s given itself a harder job than most to pull off effective death scenes with an obviously low budget.
But in fact the ‘distance’ kills are very well crafted via the careful use of editing and framing. And they thankfully all take place on-screen too, something even the mighty “Friday the 13th” failed to deliver at times.

Luckily the copious amount of breasts and furry fun patches on display (plus some creaky lesbian shenanigans thrown in for good measure) means that “Fatal Games” at least has something exploitative to keep us watching the screen (unlike too many Slashers) while awaiting the next demise.
Thankfully this nudity makes itself known during one of the death scenes too, which of course ups the essential exploitation content to add just the little bit of extra to deaths that obviously lack that Tom Savini style gore extravagance.

By the 45 minute mark we are 3 bodies into the count so “Fatal Games” at least has decent placing of the deaths to ensure we don’t fidget away in our seats during an overly dry build-up (something that plagued the otherwise far superior “The Burning” for example), but despite this the film does have a rather low corpse count by the end credits, which is a shame.

And despite the murder scene placement there are still too many rather dull and stodgy ‘characterisation’ (hee hee) scenes to sit through, but generally “Fatal Games” is certainly one of the faster moving Slashers and only rarely has nothing on the screen to hold the interest.
Points off though for the time spent following a guy around on crutches during the lead-up to the (very, very silly but rather fun) finale because he literally slows the film down to a painful hop at a bad time! But once again the film saves itself by having this trawl around the darkened school deliver a nicely macabre pay-off.And although the teen characters are all pretty forgettable and interchangeable at least they’re not generally obnoxious or annoying, another plus. No vomit inducing “Hostel” twats here at least.

The biggest disappointment with “Fatal Games” is that the nudity and well crafted deaths take place in a movie that has cheap sound recording, dull production design, awfully bland and flat cinematography (one arty backlit moments aside that resembles the Witch shot during the finale to “Superstition”) and workmanlike direction from Michael Elliot, who it seems sensed this as he appears not to have directed anything else.

But “Fatal Games” certainly has its moments, delivers some pretty good Slasher sequences, throws some naked high school girls into the mix to pep things up when needed and it’s certainly much better than the dreadfully paced, oh so dull, shot in a cave with a flashlight painfulness of “Graduation Day”, a film it sort of resembles.
“Take it all the way”!!