The Game (1984)

The Game (USA, 1984) 84 min color DIR-DOP-EDITOR: Bill Rebane. PROD: Barbara J. Rebane. SCR: William Arthur, Larry Dreyfus. MUSIC: Bruce Malm. CAST: Tom Blair, Jim Iaquinta, Carol Perry, Wally Flaherty, Don Arthur, Debbie Martin, Lori Minnetti, Pamela Rohleder, Randy Hicks, Ronnie Hicks, Aaron Harpe, J.D. Beckman, Alan G. Rainer.

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“Why, your special effects were tremendous!”

Nothing if not a mixed bag of tone and style, this change of pace from Bill Rebane’s usual backwoods terrors is a funhouse of incident perhaps done in the spirit of William Castle (like 13 Frightened Girls or Let’s Kill Uncle), in a comic-thriller plot that could be called Hitchcockian, but one hesitates to use that term. So as to avoid any confusion, I’m not attempting to equate this film to a work by The Master of Suspense, because Rebane is no Hitchcock, but on the other hand, Hitchcock is no Rebane, either.

The premise is a labyrinth of double-crosses and put-ons, as three bored millionaires, George (Wally Flaherty), Horace (Don Arthur) and Maude (Carol Perry, who played Mrs. Schultz in The Demons of Ludlow, back for another haughty character), stage their annual game of inviting people to potentially win a million dollars in cash if they conquer their fears. The nine contestants are put up in an abandoned hotel, and meet such obstacles as rats, spiders, and even the elements, as two people nearly freeze to death in a sauna: no doubt this was the scene that inspired this film’s alternate and equally acceptable title, The Cold.

The characters who rise to the challenge are truly an oddball lot: blonde preppy John (Tom Blair), law student Karen (Debbie Martin), so-called stud Joe Wolf (Jim Iaquinta) with the stereotypical porn mustache, southern belle Shelley (Pamela Rohleder) with a Blanche Devereaux accent and her friend Cindy (Lori Minnetti), and a rock band quartet headed by vocalist Randy Sue (Randy Hicks). Imagine the scenes in 70s porn where everyone has their clothes on, and you get an idea of the level of histrionics in this bunch. (Or so I’m told.) Imagine further the ridiculous dollar store props that are used to scare these people: from the slimy monster that pops out of a mattress, to the plastic shark fin in the pool.

Although the tone is childlike, the film is adult in the sense that many of the female co-stars are often scantily clad (or less), likely in order to make video sales; even the prim and proper law student appears in a bikini for a dream sequence (or is it?) when she goes for a dip in the pool and is attacked by a snake. Wow, symbolism. (Perhaps during this viewing of The Game, it finally dawned on me why I like the films of Bill Rebane so much: he always cast these brunettes with the oval jaws that just drive me wild.) Additionally, when one of the characters is gagged and held at gunpoint, we forget about the silly dollar store props.

This skimpy art direction rather befits the film’s berserk mixture of tones and shooting styles (right down to the millionaires prancing down hotel corridors in Halloween masks while tinny silent movie piano music plays). The cartoon characters and silly special effects all seem to work together: this seems to be a movie where everyone surrendered themselves to the reality that this is a cheap piece of nonsense.

It is difficult to tell if Bill Rebane ignored the William Arthur-Larry Dreyfus screenplay and just decided to “wing it”, as with each new scene someone else turns the tables, people become more than who we think they are, the movie becomes increasingly incomprehensible, right up to the “huh?” of a climax with a ghoulish something or other looking out the window. Red herrings like a hunchbacked figure in white makeup lurking around go unexplained, further adding to the haywire “plot”. But in truth, I like this damn thing.

As the film progresses, the viewer feels as “put on” as the its characters, and must surrender oneself to the game, or be left in the cold. The abandoned hotel is setting is genuinely creepy: perhaps another scenario with a theme of isolation that attracted Rebane to the project? (His films are often with characters cut off from the rest of the world.) The millionaires’ control over even the hotel’s PA system and television broadcasts (one of the hapless characters is hanged right after the late night TV sign-off) is a novel gimmick recalling Fritz Lang’s The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse. The ending of the lone figure on the bridge at night is rather haunting, even if it is preceded by eighty minutes of silliness. Whatever his shortcomings, Bill Rebane still knows how to set a mood.

I had first viewed The Game on the Mill Creek 50-movie pack DVD set, Chilling Classics. It is now available on Arrow’s amazing Blu-ray set, Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection. The disk is shared with Rebane’s final feature, Twister’s Revenge. The Game is presented both in 4×3 and widescreen formats. For this review, I chose to watch the latter, if to have a vicariously “cinematic” experience. As told by the director himself in the extra Straight Shooter: Bill Rebane on The Game, the film didn’t play theatrically, but did quite well in foreign sales. The film was shot for about $50,000 in an off-season hotel, where cast and crew were generously provided all amenities, and hints that the film was kind of made up on the spot (screenplay credits notwithstanding). Extras include Discovering Bill Rebane, a 28-minute Zoom lecture with Stephen Bissette discussing his chronological discovery of Rebane’s work (and eventually their appeal), including a slideshow of various stills and posters. Snippets of these extras also appear in the 2021 feature-length documentary, Who Is Bill Rebane?, featured elsewhere on this set.

The boxed set also features a collectible little hardcover book, From Latvia to Wisconsin: The Song Remains Rebane (cute), written by genre scholar Stephen Thrower (of the mighty tome, Nightmare U.S.A.). It features a generous and thoughtful overview of Rebane’s life and career, although unsurprisingly it favours the titles that are featured in this set. For instance, an appendix reveals the full credits are featured for the six films, but ignores The Giant Spider Invasion, Rana or Blood Harvest. In his prose, Thrower considers The Game his favourite of Rebane’s works, and I can see his point. It is perhaps the “sleeper” of his career (Blood Harvest notwithstanding). As Rebane mentions in his Straight Shooter piece, people seem to like this movie. As I write this, I still can’t get those final images out of my mind, and will likely revisit this movie soon: such is its infectious staying power. It’s a pity that people couldn’t see this projected in the last days of regional films being projected at the drive-in, but at least we can console ourselves with seeing it on a big screen TV in our own portable drive-ins.