Stupid Games Review: A Deliberately Paced, Fairly Spooky Single-Location Indie Horror
What kind of Stupid Games can a filmmaker — two, to be exact, with co-directors Nicolas Wendl and Dani Abraham — pull off with a budget of less than US$10,000? Shot around a week and takes place primarily in an apartment, the movie begins with Jaxon (Saad Rolando) and his friend, Rex (Gage Robinson) on their way to a dinner party.
The party in question is hosted by Celeste (Alyssa Tortomasi), where Jaxon first met her at a bar a few weeks ago. Their initial hookup goes on pretty well, only to be ghosted for no reason, and now, she is suddenly back and invites him to a dinner party. Except with the rule that Jaxon must follow: Bring in two more friends to join. Rex is already in, but the third friend bails out, but thankfully, they manage to find a replacement named Stanley (Grant Terzakis), a socially awkward guy who works as a building superintendent, that seems like an odd but necessary choice.
Besides, all Jaxon cares the most is to meet Celeste again while Rex is looking forward to getting laid. The latter is especially true since Celeste also has her two female friends, Riley (Cass Huckabay) and Mia (Ashwini Ganpule) included in the dinner party. The movie takes its time getting to the main event, but I do appreciate Wendl and Abraham’s deliberate direction. It all started with boys-meet-girls routine and how they immediately hit it off: Jaxon and Celeste are happy to see each other again, Rex and Riley attract to each other, and so does Stanley and Mia.
Everything seems harmless at first as we see them flirt with each other, talking and laughing while enjoying each other’s company, eating dinner at the table. And yet, there’s something that isn’t right and even questionable about Celeste’s whole intention. Then comes the sudden power outage, prompting them to light some candles and the girls bring out a few board games. After going through the selections, they end up with the one called Quest for Truth.
In case you are wondering, the board game is specially custom-made for the movie, which is a cross of Scrabble, Truth or Dare and Monopoly. There’s a brief exposition on how the game works that comes with a stack of task cards, dice and a bag filled with alphabet letters. This is where it starts to get creepy around 30 minutes or so, and the candlelit atmosphere adds to the mood, and I’m glad Christian Klein’s cinematography is competent enough with none of the dimly-lit or too-dark-you-can’t-see-a-thing visual scenario.
Credits also go to the co-directors for not shooting their movie in a jittery and incomprehensible camerawork and keeping it steady. The movie sure has the feel and look of a ’90s-era direct-to-video horror feature, complete with the co-directors’ insistence to shoot their movie with practical effects. For instance, they use magnets to make the letter pieces move across the board by themselves at one point in the movie. Such special effects are nothing that we haven’t seen before, especially if you are a horror fan. But considering the shoestring budget and limited resources they only have at their disposal, it was an admirable feat.
The single-location apartment setting allows the co-directors to evoke a sense of foreboding dread, complete with Celeste and her female friends’ sneaky motivations that make the mystery feel intriguing. Stupid Games also incorporate other special effects moments like the wall-mounted kitchen cabinets that keep banging their doors, which instantly reminds me of Poltergeist-like sinister vibes. In the meantime, the acting is a mixed bag; some of them are borderline amateurish, but I do particularly enjoy Grant Terzakis’s perfectly nerdy supporting turn as Stanley.
The movie somehow falters when it finally hits the so-called all-hell-breaks-loose payoff, which either feels overdone (what’s up with the annoying strobe lights anyway?) or underwhelming (the rushed finale). Stupid Games is available for streaming on Tubi, Mometu, The CW and Prime Video.
