Fatal Games

3/1/19841h 28m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ There can only be one winner in this contest. Their mistake was to even compete! ~

Overview:

The young athletes of Falcon Academy are training hard to earn their place in the nationals. But when these burgeoning sports stars start disappearing one after the other, Dr. Jordine and his team - who’ve started plying their athletes with new and untested performance-enhancing drugs - are baffled.

Director:

Michael Elliot

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Key words:

olympic games
doping
steroids
slasher
athletics

Cast

Sally Kirkland

~ as ~

Diane Paine

Lynn Banashek

~ as ~

Annie Rivers

Sean Masterson

~ as ~

Phil Dandridge

Michael O'Leary

~ as ~

Frank Agee

Teal Roberts

~ as ~

Lynn Fox

Spice Williams-Crosby

~ as ~

Coach Drew

Melissa Prophet

~ as ~

Nancy Wilson

Angela Bennett

~ as ~

Sue Allen Baines

Nicholas Love

~ as ~

Joe Ward

Lauretta Murphy

~ as ~

Shelly

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

Wuchak
Written 1 year(s) ago
5
Olympic wannabes slain by a javelin

Athletes at an American farming school for the Olympics go missing, which leaves the staff and other students puzzled.

“Fatal Games” (1984) is one of the many slashers that came out in the wake of the success of “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th.” The formula and tropes are simply transferred to a different milieu; in this case, an athletics school.

I like the genre and this one includes all the ingredients necessary for a quality slasher, but drops the ball with boring characters/dramatics, too much filler, and an annoyingly dated score (the scores of “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” are fresh by comparison). Then there’s the constant switches to the front of the school, which is supposed to be in Massachusetts, but it’s glaringly Los Angeles.

Nevertheless, there’s enough good here if you’re in the mood for an 80’s slasher and don’t mind prosaic filmmaking. For instance, the revelation of the javelin-wielding killer is creative and well-done. It wouldn’t work today, however, due to eye-rolling political correctness.

The movie runs 1 hour, 24 minutes, and was shot in the Los Angeles area at Redondo Beach (for the interiors done in Aviation High School, which is now demolished) and, for the exteriors, University High School in West Los Angeles.

GRADE: C+