Cast: Christine Spang, Markus Silbiger, Conner Ann Waterman
Keywords: halloween, revenge, survivalist, home invasion, masked man, dark past,
4.6/10
Wicked Games Storyline
When Harley joins her new boyfriend for a long Halloween weekend at his country estate, they’re invaded by a band of masked freaks and forced to play a Wicked Game. To the intruders’ unpleasant surprise, Harley’s hard-boiled history has endowed her with a bag of tricks which give the game a surprise ending.
Kiel (Markus Silbiger) is bringing his girlfriend Harley (Christine Spang) to a palatial estate out of the beaten path. But when they get there, there are others waiting to spoil their good time…
“Wicked Games” is another entry in the “Home invaders get more than they bargained for” sub-genre. Unfortunately, it makes the two biggest mistakes you can make in this type of movie — it makes the heroine not very likeable and makes is impossible to be fearful for her. Early on (and this isn’t a spoiler since we see it in action in the first fifteen minutes), we learn that Harley is a Rambo/John Wick combo who is easily able to defeat men much larger than herself, and in addition shows herself to be a psychotically violent sadist when she is pounding some guy into oblivion.
So there is, quite literally, no peril for her when the events start happening. We never for one second fear for her safety because we just assume she will easily and gruesomely dispatch the home invaders (who quite accommodatingly enter the house one at a time). And without us rooting for the heroine to overcome insurmountable odds, the movie is just sort of… meh.
The film does explore her backstory very briefly, and has an “anti-twist” (which is a twist that you see coming a mile away but you hope against hope that you’re wrong).
All in all, a disappointment.
Reviewed by nogodnomasters8 / 10
I spit on your family grave
The one line synopsis lets use know that Harley (Christine Spang) our only and final girl is a fighter and will have to deal with a home break-in and being able to hold her own. We later discover her ability came from being the star in her own gang-rape revenge story which would have made the film better if it was an actual sequel. Harley heads out to spend time with Kiel (Markus Silbiger) a good looking hunk who is great in bed. (Her words, not mine.) At 30 minutes into the feature, the character introductions are all done and items introduced to be used in future scenes as the break-in happens. The attempt to brand and kill her did not go well.
What I liked about the film is the middle fight and “hide and seek” sequences were not slow boring, predictable, and repetitious. What I didn’t like was what I call a double or triple ending bringing in folks from out of the blue. Let well enough alone. A flashback to her past killings would have been okay. Redbox rental.
Guide: F-word. Sex. No nudity.
motion sickness warning
I was really looking forward to this movie and then the lousy camera work started. If you are the type of person that gets motion sickness easily – then this movie is NOT for you. The movie starts off with a deputy struggling to survive after being attacked. But I wasn’t able to fully understand what all was going on as the camera keep moving around wildly – so it was very difficult to focus on the characters and the things around the deputy as I was already starting to get sick due to the constant motion of the camera. I then forwarded the movie for about 10 minutes but the bad camera work was still non-stop. I kept on forwarding the movie by 10 minutes but it didn’t help – there was still constant motion of the camera that would make most people sick. F grade.
