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September 13, 2022

Death Game

death game.jpg

Peter Traynor - 1977
Grindhouse Releasing BD Regions ABC two-disc set

As a young man in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Peter Traynor would watch European art films in Boston theaters. Following a failed attempt to break into the film business in Los Angeles, Traynor bluffed his way into selling insurance in San Francisco, managing to set historical sales records. In his early Thirties, Traynor finally found his way becoming a producer, financing several low budget films, usually with a group of small investors. This was a time when tax shelter laws were favorable for even the most humble of independent producers. The tax shelter laws were in place between 1971 and 1976, made to encourage domestic film production, and were partially responsible for allowing the emergence of the first generation of film school graduates making their feature debuts.

Traynor grew up admiring Bicycle Thieves, but as a producer, formed a partnership with Mark Lester which resulted in Steel Arena and Truck Stop Women. Both films were low budget productions designed for play at drive-ins, urban grind houses, and as product filler in neighborhood theaters. And whether intended or not, once Traynor got his chance to direct a film, the result was tension between past artistic aspirations and the then current need for commercial viability. Death Game is not the horror film embraced by the arthouse crowd that was Roman Polanski's Repulsion. At the same time, it is too tasteful most of the time to really be considered an exploitation film. The subject of mixed reviews at the time of release, what ever is written about Death Game, including this piece, will say as much about the writer as about the film.

An upper middle class man, George, is alone for the weekend while his wife is away due to a family emergency. Two young women show up at night at the front door, apparently lost looking for a friend's house in the neighborhood. The two women, or maybe girls is the correct term, make a phone call to be picked up by a friend who never shows up. The girls, who identify themselves as Jackson and Donna, are able to wear down George's protests of being married, because what guy will refuse the invitations of two cute blondes, naked in a hot tub? Jackson and Donna refuse to leave, threatening blackmail with the claim that they are both under 18 years old and rape charges would only be the beginning of a nightmare for George. The next two days are of Jackson and Donna destroying the house and George's sense of self.

The film makes easy points presenting Jackson and Donna as victims of emotional and sexual abuse by men in power, fathers unreliable in their absence, and a society that in general devalues women. This premise is undermined by punishing George for the actions of others, by conflating him with all men when he is introduced as a genuinely nice guy. In the opening scene, George amiably is beaten by his wife in a friendly game of croquet. A telephone call indicates delight in talking to his son. George is a straight white guy, the proxy for the intended audience, but he not markedly misogynistic. Donna may possibly have attraction to George as a father figure.

On the other hand, Jackson and Donna reveal their strongest relationship is with each other. What is arguably the most exploitive scene is the menage-a-trois in the hot tub, because what is hotter than two attractive and naked blondes is two attractive and naked blondes making out with each other. The dynamics of the relationship are made more clear as the film progresses, fully spelled out and underlined by the end with Jackson in a tuxedo and Donna in a gown.

Cinematographer David Worth was able to make Death Game look more polished than one would ever expect for a film made with a final cost of $200,000 after post-production is included. Even though the film barely received a theatrical release, it was helpful in reviving Sondra Locke's then flagging acting career. This was also the first substantial role for Colleen Camp, an actress with great comic chops who should have gone beyond scene stealing supporting roles. Seymour Cassel's performance is harder to judge as his voice was dubbed by David Worth following a dispute with the director.

The blu-ray comes with many extras, most notably two commentary tracks by Colleen Camp with Eli Roth, and producer Larry Spiegel and cinematographer/editor David Worth. There are also interviews with Traynor and screenwriter Michael Ronald Ross, and a telephone interview with Sondra Locke. The interviews are of interest in discussing the convoluted history of Death Game from script to screen as well as conflicting thoughts on Peter Traynor's talents as a film director. And if that was not enough, there is the bonus feature of the soft-core erotic, Little Miss Innocence which took the elements of the basic story when Death Game was still an unproduced screenplay that had changed several hands.

Posted by Peter Nellhaus at September 13, 2022 05:49 AM