The idea of games seems to be central to a host of horror films these days – you could no doubt reel off a whole host of movies with this concept at the core, twisted games with the winners being allowed to survive and the losers being brutally killed, often with the people involved having to kill or torture one another in the process. And we’ve covered our fair share over the years, though I do try not to overdo it – given the number of films in the pantheon, you could spend a year or more covering these alone. And Play or Die is – as the title would intimate – another example of deadly games with horribly high, real stakes for everyone involved…

Lucas and Chloe are both avid gamers, and the start of the film here seems to be reunited after some time apart. We find out they previously spent years trying to track down a secret game online called Paranoia, and Chloe claims that she’s now incredibly close to unlocking it. With a bit of tech wizardry, they’re soon off to a secret underground rave and – after beating a round of what I think is Street Fighter – they find themselves part of the game, locked in an abandoned asylum with a handful of other gamers. A series of fiendish puzzles ensue, each one serving up more danger than the last, until (inevitably – this is not even much of a spoiler) the game boils down to just Lucas and Chloe.

The whole thing looks decent, and the puzzles in the game feel reasonably believable – I’m stuffed if I could have figured some of them out. As things wear on, some of the traps and devices do begin to get a bit far-fetched, but I think the minute you go into something like this you have to suspend disbelief in order to really get something out of it. The acting performances were OK, if nothing mind-blowing, and the whole thing at large was an entertaining enough romp for a horror fan such as myself. After an hour or so of this one I was willing to give this a perfectly passable mark, something in the 6 or 6.5 range.

However – and I will say this without trying to spoil it – the ending to this movie is just terrible. We’d come to a point, really, where there was nothing else to do or add, but there just had to be something else for the filmmakers to throw in. To be fair, this is based on a novel, so I suppose if it was in the original source material then I shouldn’t really lay this at the feet of the director. But this unravels big time in the last fifteen minutes, and the mark I wanted to give it seemed to slide literally second by second. If you’d hit a home run – or even bunted it to first base – with the finale I’d have given this something perfectly decent, but this was a big-time strike out of an ending which is going to drag it down.

If you wanted to take a look for yourself, you’ll find this one on Sky Cinema – or at least you could at the time of writing – but brace yourself for it. You might get a bit more out of it, or be a bit more forgiving, if you have an idea what’s coming…

RATING: 3/10. Out of the many ‘do you wanna play a game’ style horror movies I’ve seen, sadly this has to rate among the worst. Most of it is perfectly serviceable, but you’re never secured a decent grade until the credits roll, and I just can’t let go of this finale – I could hardly believe what I was seeing, and I don’t mean that in a good way here! This had potential but it seemed to be frittered away – I’d be interested to check out the book and see if it goes down the same road as this one, or if it’s different to the end result here. Honestly I think you could do better even if this is just the sort of movie you love.

It’s not all that often we get to look at a documentary here at Film Gutter, but this one feels mightily relevant in delving into the myths and truths behind one of the most notorious extreme horror films of all time. I Spit On Your Grave in and of itself barely needs an introduction – in fact, some time back we did a full month on the topic, taking in reviews of the original, the remake trilogy and the unofficial sequel, Savage Vengeance (or as its title card read, Savage Vengance). And this documentary, made by the son of the original director Meir Zarchi, sets out to explore the origins, fan reactions, critical response and indeed moral panic surrounding ISOYG.

Documentaries sometimes don’t make for the easiest things to review, and for today I’m going to zoom in on two elements – the actual look and feel of the thing, as well as the information and background that it provided. From the get-go this movie doesn’t look all that great – it’s obviously filmed fairly cheap, and some of the digital stuff does look pretty poor. The interviews in and of themselves all look fine, though maybe there could be a bit more visual interest created with more camera angles and the like. However, I don’t want to be too hard on that element because it’s obviously a real passion project by Terry Zarchi, who produced and directed, and it feels to me like he really does want to explore this topic almost as a sort of catharsis, of dealing with the many contrary emotions that this movie must have brought about. Most of the junior Zarchi’s work has been in casting, with this being only a third time behind the camera – and those movies spread pretty wide apart – so there’s a definite sense this meant something to him personally, which I have to applaud.

In terms of offering fresh insight into the movie and its history, I feel like it does a decent if not spectacular job there – some of this I was familiar with, although I’m not a novice or a newbie where it comes to these movies. There were some interesting insights here though – for example, one of the actors deciding never to act again after this experience, and Camille Keaton – naturally one of the main interviewees here – offers plenty of fascinating on-set stories, as well as some of her experiences beyond the movie as the star of this film. Parts of the movie looking at the distribution and the controversy surrounding it – including Siskel and Ebert’s brutal reviews and efforts to get the movie pulled – were familiar to me but ultimately had to be covered in the interest of fullness. I was pretty stunned to learn that the model on the well-known poster for the movie was in fact a young Demi Moore – not world-shaking, but an intriguing nugget nonetheless.

Overall, this is a solid effort as a study of one of the most infamous movies ever released, for all that a higher budget might have helped. It could also have done with a slight trim, feeling a bit overlong at nearly an hour and three-quarters. All the main players in the movie are here barring a handful who didn’t want to take part, and it certainly adds relevant context and flavour to a viewing of the film – it’d be interesting to watch the original back with all these splashes of extra info in mind. Honestly, I’d like to see more extreme horror movies given this sort of treatment – we have A Serbian Documentary on the way, as well as Revisiting Melancholie Der Engel out there yet to review as well. Maybe these offerings can usher in more critical and analytical looks at some of those films that have stirred so much controversy and emotional reaction over the years.

RATING: 7/10. This was a good, even-handed look at a movie with a long and confused history, one that fell at several hurdles before finding any sort of audience at all and has been the subject of intense debate and discussion ever since. If you’re already a fan of ISOYG this will probably present plenty for you, and even those of you with only a passing knowledge of it might even find it an interesting watch. It’s worth your time if maybe it could have been cut a bit shorter.

THE BURNING HELL (1974)
Southern Baptist preacher Estus W. Pirkle vividly depicts where non-believers and sinners go unless they become saved.
Dir. Ron Ormond, 57 mins

It’s that time again…

Last week we looked at the first extended sermon from one Estus W. Pirkle, which wouldn’t usually have been our patch at all – that is apart from the fact it was directed by famed exploitation director turned born-again Christian Ron Ormond. However, Ormond seemed to take those old filmmaking sensibilities with him to his new career path, with men, women and children getting gunned down by communists left, right and centre and a pretty staggering scene where a child literally gets decapitated for hanging on to his faith rather than renouncing Jesus. Now we’re pretty hardened around here, but that shocked me nonetheless, so you can probably imagine the effect this might have had on conservative Christians in the early 1970s.

All of which brings us to today’s movie, the second collaboration between Pirkle and Ormond, entitled The Burning Hell. It won’t be much of a revelation that this one concerns the lake of fire that awaits all ye sinners, and we kick off with a weird scene where Pirkle is visited by two biker/hippie guys (the cultural references here feel so off-kilter, by the way) who are sort of religious but believe in some new form of Christianity that doesn’t believe in Hell. Of course, Pirkle isn’t having any of that, and invites them to his sermon. And one of them does turn up to his sermon – only one, mind, because in the meantime his friend has died in a motorcycle accident. Pirkle doesn’t seem to worry at all about plugging this into his sermon, which feels more than a little insensitive, and over the course of the preaching our lead is eventually persuaded to join the faith.

Oh yes, and before we forget, we see a whole lot of images of hell throughout.

As per If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, Pirkle’s sermon is intercut with all sorts of horrifying imagery designed to frighten and shock you into religion. The shots of hell are plenty fiery and unpleasant, and I must admit there is a scene or two here that is unsettling, despite acting performances ranging from dodgy to hammy. But people are crying and wailing, covered in blood and shit (or a combination of both?) and obviously suffering a terrible fate. This of course is a fate destined to last for eternity, which Pirkle demonstrates with a ridiculous board covered with zeros. ‘This is a million years! Here is a billion years! This represents a trillion years…’ and so on. We get it – eternity is a bloody long time, and no amount of fatuous maths will help drive that home further.

As well as Pirkle, we get a few guest speakers, who appear to be sliced in pretty much at random and add very little. To be fair, even though I’m not the church type, Pirkle does deliver a mean sermon and his speech flows well. I could see to some extent why people were drawn to him around this time. Pirkle published five books in his time, as well as three movies, and given the cinematic output I’d say wasn’t one to question exactly how he converted people to the cause – the ends apparently justified the means in his mind for these sorts of films to come out. Some of this stuff would probably have fallen fall of the censors, or if they’d been about ten years later might even have got caught up in the video nasty panic, were it not for their wholesome religious message.

As mentioned in passing last week, there is another part of the trilogy, 1977’s The Believer’s Heaven, but I won’t be including it within this extended special feature. While that’s also directed by Ormond, it’s very much the positive side of the coin, and I can’t quite justify giving in the Film Gutter treatment. What strikes me most about that one is the claim it was ‘photographed on five continents’ – I’m sure the budget for these films would absolutely stretch to that, right? Right? It’s mostly the same cast for the two we have looked at, so I don’t think these were exactly no expense spared…

Anyway, we’ll be moving back to our regular programming from next week on, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief foray into the weird and wonderful worlds of Pirkle and Ormond!