Review: Blood Games (1990)
Directed by: Tanya Rosenberg
Starring: Gregory Cummings, Laura Albert, Lee Benton
Written by: Craig Clyde, James Hennessy, George Saunders
Music by: Greg Turner
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray (Vinegar Syndrome)
IMDb
The ‘70s were a hotbed of exploitation filmmaking and the apex of the rape/revenge film and the backwoods thriller, but this 1990 joint does a fine job of channeling its predecessors at a time when this sort of sleazy flick had gone into hibernation.
Although Blood Games might be the only redneck softball league-based survival thriller in existence, it’s a damn fine one. Babe & the Ball Girls is a traveling all-women softball team that apparently stops in Podunk towns across rural America to play games against hastily assembled hillbillies for cold hard cash. This particular game, which gets cantankerous with slow-motion elbow throws and slow-motion baseballs tossed at dicks, ends with the Ball Girls walloping a group of very sore losers who set out for nasty, misogynistic revenge. A few accidental and not-as-accidental deaths later, the girls are on the run through the surrounding scenic forest.
This is the only film directed by Tanya Rosenberg. Like The Slumber Party Massacre (1982), also directed by a woman (Amy Holden Jones), Blood Games is, on one hand, very interested in exploiting the flesh of its beautiful stars through lengthy shower scenes, very short shorts, and camera angles that don’t leave any ass cheeks to the imagination, while, on the other, giving the women the agency, intelligence, and resilience to not only survive but become the aggressors. The girls, especially main character Babe (Laura Albert), are all very likable and resourceful (other than Babe’s sister, who spends the entire movie as mopey dead weight), and seem to genuinely care about each other. The chemistry among the cast keeps the movie very engaging even as things sink to more mean-spirited depths.
The women are subjected to some real nastiness, and there are plenty of scenes of sexual and physical violence to remind you of the film’s influences. There are enough instances of “bitch” to fuel a hundred misogynistic flicks. Like the grimiest of ‘70s schlock, there are scenes of outright savagery that are hard to watch. You’ll be subjected to the frustration of not only witnessing cruelty unleashed on characters who don’t deserve it, but also of seeing the women repeatedly pass up opportunities to murder the shit out of their pursuers. Don Dowe’s character should have had his penis destroyed on at least four different occasions.
For a movie of this kind, the production values are surprisingly high without stepping too far outside its grindhouse roots. In addition to passable acting and decently written characters, there are some ballsy and impressive stunts (in fact, Laura Albert is still working as a professional stunt actor). Rosenberg keeps things moving, powered by an energetic, emotional, and catchy score by Greg Turner composed of plink-plunk pianos, throbbing synths, and lots of reverb. Slow motion is massively abused in its portrayal of arrow impalements, bat bludgeonings, topless forest tripping, gratuitous rifle-aiming, buttocks jiggling during scrambling escapes, nosedives off of cliffs and other high locations, squib explosions, dramatic breath-catching, and various other moments both mundane and theatrical.
Blood Games is a very watchable (though sometimes hard to watch) exploitation flick that’s as well made as the most competent of its peers, while offering up an appealing cast, sustained thrills, a lengthy softball game, arm-wrestling, toilet-dunking, and a touching in memorium montage.
Overall rating: 7.5 out of 10
