Not as bad as some reviewers will have you believe, but this isn't Don't Look in the Basement or Re-Animator either. This film centers on a plucky gal named Keegan (Jo Ann Harris) whose sister is murdered in the opening scene. She returns home to solve the case with help from Vietnam vet sheriff Sam Groom who is one of two suspects. One of the main flaws is that throughout the film, we, the viewers, know that the killer can either be one of two Vietnam vets: the surly, ladiesman sheriff who screws everything in site or his battle buddy Steve Railsback who operates the local theater. Needless to say, the suspense was lacking. The viewer has two suspects. Which Vietnam vet is killing off all the pretty things in town?

VIOLENCE: $$$ (This won't disappoint gore hounds but what will disappoint them is the time between death scenes. There is far too much filler in the script--displayed as characterization--that will assuredly lead the less entranced viewer reaching for the fastforward button. The opening scene has Alexandra Morgan strangled. Later Colleen Camp gets hers in a pool, but it is a poorly filmed scene. Denise Galik gets throttled after a romp in bed. Other dames get attacked also).

STORY: $$$ (The story starts off very promising: a sexy woman gets pushed out a window to her death. Shortly thereafter we are introduced to a unique character, Keegan, that isn't your ordinary screaming head but a wise acre. Keegan is fun for about half an hour, but once the story starts to sputter, Keegan's antics become less eccentric and more annoying. Also, the story deals with a board game but the screenwriter failed to mix that subplot into the story effectively).

ACTING: $$ (Jo Ann Harris, although interestingly plucky at the beginning, will indeed get on your nerves. A character like that needs to be a co-star at best and they had that in the acid tongued waitress that Denise Galik masterfully played. The lead needn't be that off-putting. Sam Groom was alright as the sheriff but fans of Steve Railsback and Colleen Camp need not apply. Colleen has about ten minutes screen time and when she gets killed in the pool, you can hardly tell--given the poor lighting--that it was Colleen who even entered the water).

SEXUALITY: $$$$$ (Here you won't be let down, unless this isn't your thing. The lovely Alexandra Morgan (I believe that's her name) has a lengthy topless scene in the opening scene of the film. She is well put together if you know what I mean. Jo Ann Harris has a brief topless scene before entering the shower and the heavenly Denise Galik goes threads free in bed with Sam Groom).

1982 slasher Deadly Games (not to be confused with the similarly titled '84 slasher Fatal Games) begins promisingly enough, getting its first scene of gratuitous female nudity in well before the opening credits have finished—that's got to be some kind of record. The topless beauty is then chased through her very dark house by a killer dressed in black (including regulation ski mask and gloves),before the woman falls through a window to her death on some rocks. So far so good.

Sadly, after this encouraging start, it's all downhill. The victim's sister, Keegan (Jo Ann Harris),turns up at the scene of the crime, and a more irritating character it would be hard to imagine: within minutes you'll be wishing it was her who took the face plant onto the rocks, the woman's goofy mannerisms and constant, supposedly amusing quips proving irritating in the extreme. And she is the main character for the next eighty minutes or so. Not so great.

The remainder of the film primarily consists of Keegan developing a relationship with married cop Roger Lane (Sam Groom) and a friendship with Roger's best buddy, oddball theatre owner Billy Owens (Steve Railsback),one of whom is obviously the killer. This leads to such exciting scenes as the threesome going to the park for a football game, watching an old movie at the theatre, and playing a board game (part of a montage that is accompanied by a lousy song),all of which has sod all to do with the plot.

After lots of pointless waffle, interspersed by a couple of random jump scares, a spot more nudity (during the obligatory sex scene),and a couple of bloodless murders, the film ends with a predictable chase through the darkened theatre, after which Keegan conveniently finds a gun and shoots the killer dead. Normally this would signal the end credits, but writer Scott Mansfield has another surprise up his sleeve, one that'll leave you wondering what the heck you just watched.

Deadly Games may have been sold as a slasher, but it's more of a murder mystery. Sure, the killings are pretty intense - a long drowning, burying a victim alive - but it's maybe even less a murder mystery and more a late 70s, early 80s small town romantic drama where lots of people swing and one of them - either a cop or Vietname vet - is a masked killer.

It's interesting how little this movie cares about fitting into any neat and clean box.

Clarissa Jane Louise "Keegan" Lawrence (Jo Anne Harris) is a rock journalist back home after the death of her sister, a murder that she's out to solve. After all, her sister didn't jump out of a window like that, right? She had to have been thrown.

Dick Butkis, the Chicago Bears linebacker legend that had such a long career after that as a kid I just thought he was an actor, owns a coffee shop in town. That's where a lot of the exposition happens, like how strange Billy Owens (Steve Railsback) is, a Vietnam soldier not back home all in one mental piece who is obsessed with monster movies and his horror-themed game of Chutes and Ladders and oh yeah, he also lives in an old movie theater and sounds like someone I'd go out of my way to be friends with. That said, it's set up that he has to be the masked killer. Certainly the killer can't be Sheriff Roger Lane (Sam Groom),because he's nice and plays on the swings and romances Keegan.

Director and writer Scott Mansfield seems out to make a movie that makes you believe it's a slasher and then pulls the rug out from under you with an ending that completely predates Scream - without spoilers, but man, that does feel like a spoiler.

The board hame in this is Universal monsters inspired and I love that Roger and Billy have been playing it for decades, as well as the killer somehow knowing way too much about it. I can only wish I still had friends ready to play a board game that often.

Coleen Camp and June Lockhart are in this as well, so my casting brain was quite impressed by who Mansfield got to be in this movie.

It's not perfect, it's probably too long and too talky, but I enjoyed the laid back vibe of Deadly Games. The last ten minutes are worth the time that it takes to get there and I was pretty surprised by the leap that the film makes.