Fatal Games (1984)
October 31, 2024 6:27 AM - Subscribe
Athletes at a sports academy are getting systematically killed by a mysterious javelin thrower.
So this was our "Sports Horror" choice for our Halloween challenge and y'all...what the hell is this movie???
It's a combo of soft porn boobs-a-go-go (like, so many boobs even for the time period and runtime of the movie), baffling acting with the continued casting of Clearly Adults as Teens, an insanely strong masked killer, and Olympics "crush the Russkies" fervor. Sally Kirkland is about the only notable name in this movie.
There's an ending that evokes Sleepaway Camp's shocking reveal but in our opinion, doesn't quite land. I mean, it's worth watching as the "teens" are as thick as pig shit--my fave is when one of the female characters wants to go for pizza but is instead taken to a Mexican restaurant and the restaurant plainly says it is a Mexican restaurant and yet our heroine doesn't clock it AT ALL--and the haircuts are feathered and the men are dressed slutty like they used to be.
Bonus for a lesbian romance that isn't a big deal!
We watched it streaming on Tubi in Canada.
So this was our "Sports Horror" choice for our Halloween challenge and y'all...what the hell is this movie???
It's a combo of soft porn boobs-a-go-go (like, so many boobs even for the time period and runtime of the movie), baffling acting with the continued casting of Clearly Adults as Teens, an insanely strong masked killer, and Olympics "crush the Russkies" fervor. Sally Kirkland is about the only notable name in this movie.
There's an ending that evokes Sleepaway Camp's shocking reveal but in our opinion, doesn't quite land. I mean, it's worth watching as the "teens" are as thick as pig shit--my fave is when one of the female characters wants to go for pizza but is instead taken to a Mexican restaurant and the restaurant plainly says it is a Mexican restaurant and yet our heroine doesn't clock it AT ALL--and the haircuts are feathered and the men are dressed slutty like they used to be.
Bonus for a lesbian romance that isn't a big deal!
We watched it streaming on Tubi in Canada.
I was the co-watch on this. It was just... strange, with porn-quality acting, a kind of odd wandering plot, no developed characters per se, flagrant woman-on-woman sexual assault, and abundant nudity but just kind of matter-of-fact "a lot of people happen to be naked in this movie" nudity, not titillating as much as kind of... there.
It's set at a high school, or a college? In one or many buildings? With Olympic-bound student athletes except the ones that aren't? There are full-assed men with moustaches mixed in with the "youth" in the athletics scenes, but the characters often act like they're still living at home or under the direct supervision of parents.
The climactic confrontation, when it comes, involves a character travelling off-screen about 9000 feet at the speed of sound to get where they had to be, then 0.5 seconds of action, and roll credits. I've never seen anything paced quite like it, acted quite like it, or directed quite like it.
It's just odd. Really, really odd.
Almost every kill is javelin related, but a lot of it still happens indoors. At one point the javelin killer javelin-kills from underwater while wearing scuba gear while a woman swims obliviously above them. There are a lot of long corridors for javelin throwing too!
posted by Shepherd at 5:05 PM on October 31 [2 favorites]
It's set at a high school, or a college? In one or many buildings? With Olympic-bound student athletes except the ones that aren't? There are full-assed men with moustaches mixed in with the "youth" in the athletics scenes, but the characters often act like they're still living at home or under the direct supervision of parents.
The climactic confrontation, when it comes, involves a character travelling off-screen about 9000 feet at the speed of sound to get where they had to be, then 0.5 seconds of action, and roll credits. I've never seen anything paced quite like it, acted quite like it, or directed quite like it.
It's just odd. Really, really odd.
Almost every kill is javelin related, but a lot of it still happens indoors. At one point the javelin killer javelin-kills from underwater while wearing scuba gear while a woman swims obliviously above them. There are a lot of long corridors for javelin throwing too!
posted by Shepherd at 5:05 PM on October 31 [2 favorites]
Dark Corners Reviews (a great YouTube channel for horror movie buffs) covered this a while ago. I'm tired so I'm gonna steal a bit of what I said then about the film's use of the pernicious "killer, lunatic trans person" trope:
Ugh, that whole plot twist is so 1980s, in the worst way. The newspaper scene in particular is bonkers, not just because she left the damn paper sitting out (what, does she like to re-read it now and again, for old time's sake?) but also because the headline is such a howler. I can just picture the reporter filing that article, leaning back at his desk and tapping his chin thoughtfully as he tries to think up the proper headline to sum up the shocking revelation that an Olympic champion has been disqualified after she tested positive for male hormones. And then, at last, it comes to him... "SEX CHANGE DOESN'T WORK!"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:10 AM on November 1 [2 favorites]
Ugh, that whole plot twist is so 1980s, in the worst way. The newspaper scene in particular is bonkers, not just because she left the damn paper sitting out (what, does she like to re-read it now and again, for old time's sake?) but also because the headline is such a howler. I can just picture the reporter filing that article, leaning back at his desk and tapping his chin thoughtfully as he tries to think up the proper headline to sum up the shocking revelation that an Olympic champion has been disqualified after she tested positive for male hormones. And then, at last, it comes to him... "SEX CHANGE DOESN'T WORK!"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:10 AM on November 1 [2 favorites]
I've started it (thus losing my Tubi cherry in the process; BTW, just typing in the word "fatal" into their search engine gives you quite a cornucopia of interesting movie choices, tell you what) and I don't know that I'll be able to finish it. It seems to have been created by someone who couldn't decide whether to film a Skinemaxesque sex romp, a sub-Rocky jock drama, or a straight up slasher flick, and decided to shoot the moon and try to make it all three at once, on a couch-cushion-change budget.
...on the other hand, I just found out that one of the actresses is Spice Williams, who played the totally jacked Klingon warrior Vixis in Star Trek V, and was therefore one of the few redeeming things about that movie, so maybe I'll reconsider.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:55 PM on November 3 [1 favorite]
...on the other hand, I just found out that one of the actresses is Spice Williams, who played the totally jacked Klingon warrior Vixis in Star Trek V, and was therefore one of the few redeeming things about that movie, so maybe I'll reconsider.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:55 PM on November 3 [1 favorite]
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posted by ejs at 4:13 PM on October 31