Little Game, A (1971) (TV)

Directed by:

Paul Wendkos

The classic The Bad Seed (1956), based on the popular 1954 Broadway stage play by Maxwell Anderson, which itself was based on the best-selling novel by William March, is the title most film scholars cite as the first important entry in the killer kids subgenre. And that's accurate enough. I can't think of an earlier film centered entirely around an evil child and its massive popularity (it was not only a top-grossing box office hit in both the U. S. and UK but also earned four Oscar nominations) certainly helped to popularize this particular type of film. Even to this day, this 66-year-old movie is still used as a reference point any time a new killer kid film is released.

The homonymous source novel for A Little Game, written by Fielden Farrington and first published in 1968, couldn't avoid the Bad Seed comparisons either. In fact, publisher Walker and Company relished those and very consciously worked the similarities right into the tagline ("All that THE BAD SEED was... and more...") to help sell the book. Also written right on the cover of the original 1968 edition of the novel is the promise "Soon to be a major motion picture," which makes one wonder if a major studio was considering this for a theatrical release at one time. However, that never happened and it was filmed three years later as a modest ABC TV movie instead. An online bio for Farrington written by his great-nephew simply brushes this adaptation off: "Unfortunately the movie did not capture the story well." That may have to do with the author not being directly involved in adapting his own work. Sole credit for the teleplay is given to Carol Sobieski.

However, comparisons don't really extend much further than the obvious. The Bad Seed's Rhoda was extremely manipulative and consciously used her age and angelic appearance (blonde pigtails and cute little dresses) to her advantage to manipulate all of the adults around her. In other words, she was capable of putting on such a faux naïve, squeaky-clean act that the idea she could be also be a psychotic killer was unthinkable to most of the adults around her. The kid in this movie, however, is another beast entirely! He's a hateful, rude, insufferable, unsubtle, temperamental little bugger who has a very difficult time hiding his feelings and intentions, let alone being able to pull off a completely different persona to fool the adults around him. He actually doesn't even try!

13-year-old Robert Mueller (Mark Bruner) hasn't been the same since losing his beloved, bridge-designer father in a car crash. His mother, Elaine (Diane Baker), was driving at the time and caused the accident that cost her husband his life. She has since moved on and remarried nice guy history teacher / writer Paul Hamilton (Ed Nelson). While their marriage works out fine whenever Robert's away at military boarding school, everything's far from rosy during the time's he is home. Now with Christmas right around the corner, guess who's coming back for a long visit? Robert isn't looking forward to it. Neither is Paul, who has thus far failed to establish any connection with the child despite putting in some effort. Since his neglectful parents are too busy to look after him, Robert's dorm mate Stuart Parker (Christopher Shea) accompanies him home.

After showing Stu many of his late father's belongings and photos, Robert confides that he considers his stepfather to be a "bug" and "something to be gotten rid of eventually... when he gets too annoying." Robert uses physical violence and threats (like carving an "L" into his forehead for "liar") to keep his "best friend" in line, plus makes him take part in a blood ritual where they burn a mixture of their hair and blood to solidify their loyalty to one another. Robert has developed a similar dynamic with their Mexican housekeeper, Laura (Katy Jurado). Since the father (who appears to have been a complete p.o.s.) also distrusted Laura, naturally so does Robert. Unbeknownst to Elaine, her son has already threatened to stab Laura to death if she says anything bad about either him or his father.

Elaine is that well-meaning though incompetent parent who inadvertently does more harm than good by constantly shielding her child and making any and every excuse under the sun to excuse their bad behavior. She refuses to send Robert to see a psychiatrist, downplays his obvious mental issues as him just being "difficult," claims his poor treatment of his friend is due to the fact he's so smart and smart people tend to be bossy and believes all her son really needs is a good male role model around to change his ways. Because his father was an avid hunter and gun collector, Robert has become a weird extreme gun fetishist himself. Elaine even encourages Paul to kiss up to her son by buying him a rifle for Christmas at one point! Interesting to note that the whole gun-loving-child aspect was treated as a major warning sign and cause for concern back in 1971. Jump ahead to today and it's fairly common for U.S. politicians and evangelicals to pose for holiday cards with an infant in one hand and a semi-automatic in the other, or just hand guns off to their toddlers and young children for photo ops. Just as Jesus would have done!

Thankfully, there's at least one adult in the room and Paul refuses to buy into any of this bullshit. While he loves Elaine, he does not like Robert and actually has the balls to directly tell his new wife as much. While he does promise to try to be patient, he still calls the boy things like "nasty little kid," nicknames him Rasputin and says he would have fit right in as a member of Hitler Youth. Way to go not sugarcoating it, Paul! He also flat out refuses to buy the kid a gun and questions the bizarre master-slave relationship between Robert and Stu. While Stu is polite and friendly, he's not the brightest bulb and has an unstable home life with parents who don't want much to do with him; traits that make him extremely impressionable and thus open to easy manipulation.

And then there's this mysterious incident that occurred at their boarding school. Paul overhears an argument between the boys, where the topics of killing and Robert's former dorm mate come up. After finding Robert's diary, Paul finds it filled with murder plots that the two boys claim are only horror comic-inspired fantasies about killing those they don't like. That's enough for Paul to seek out the help of private eye Al Dunlap (Howard Duff), who starts looking into what happened at their school.

While the usual TV movie limitations do hold this back a bit and keep it on the talky side, this still has both fun elements (especially some amusing dialogue / digs, when Paul and Robert begin their little "war" over the mother's affections) and potent dramatic elements, which also manage to go into some subtly creepy Oedipal territory as Robert hopes to replace his late father and be the ONLY man in his dear mother's life.

All of the actors (particularly Nelson) give strong performances and even both child actors are very good. Shea was the voice of Linus in a duo of Charlie Brown TV holiday classics: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966), and this was to be his last film appearance. Gruner would bow out of show business after playing Sheriff Brody's son Mike in Jaws 2 (1978), which seemed an odd note to go out on as that film was a big hit and he was only 19 years old at the time of filming.

Farrington, who passed away in 1977, was a radio and television announcer, penned 21 scripts for the CBS Radio Mystery Theater between 1974 and 1976 and wrote four other novels. One of those - the hostage thriller The Strangers in 7-A - was also made into a Paul Wendkos-directed TV movie. Ironically enough, Wendkos would also go on to direct the 1985 TV movie remake of The Bad Seed. This has never had an official home video release anywhere in the world to my knowledge and the best print that's currently available is an old worn VHS copy from an old TV broadcast.

★★1/2

Bimbos B.C. (1990)

Directed by:

Todd Sheets

Sheets had at least a few things going in his favor. First, he was extremely prolific. Second, he was able to start his career at the tail end of the big video boom, when nearly everything, no matter how awful, was getting some kind of video release. Third, he got David DeCoteau onboard as an executive producer for many of his early homemade productions, which established connections to a number of fringe home video distributors. These three factors pretty much insured he would one day be viewed as a “cult” filmmaker. That also meant many of his shot-with-a-camcorder-for-next-to-nothing efforts received VHS distribution and haunted the dust bins of many U.S. video stores for years. Then when DVDs took over, these were thrown on those cheap multi-film bargain sets that everyone used to buy. This one was included in the Mill Creek / Pendulum Pictures 50 film set "Mansion of Madness," which utilizes a very shoddy print filled with tape rolls and video damage.

Bimbos received two separate video releases in the 90s. The first was a 1992 release from Cinema Home Video, who also released a number of other DeCoteau and Sheets films. In 1997, it was then put out by Video Outlaw (a sub-label of Tempe Video), whose telling motto was "Movies so bad, there outta' be a law!" Who said there was no such thing as truth in advertising? Outlaw's catalogue of crapola write-up also includes the following disclaimer: "If you absolutely despise insipid acting, laughable fx, pathetic editing, horrendous lighting and idiotic plots - or if you can't get your fill of them - then say hello to the new and improved series of God-awful worst of the worst films we had the good fortune to discover. These movies MUST be destroyed for the safety and well being of us all!

Video Outlaw sold Bimbos B.C. either for 20 bucks a pop (which may exceed the film's entire actual budget), or bundled with two other SOV bimbo-fests: Sheets' first sequel Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City (1991), which features many of the same characters, and the Gary Whitson / W.A.V.E. Productions (a company whose videos are always comically overpriced) effort Bimbo Warriors on Zombie Island (1995), a re-title of his Zombie Holocaust aka Female Mercenaries on Zombie Island. That trio of tapes would have set you back a measly 60 bucks back in the day. Sheets' third and final bimbo film, Bimbos in Time (1993), also has the same characters and much of the same cast. It, along with some Bimbos tie-in comic books (!), were distributed by Draculina.

After a worldwide war has destroyed much of humanity, those surviving the devastation are divided into two camps: The regular survivors, who were forced to live underground, and the wealthy, elite and scientists, who were able to live a life of luxury above ground in Armageddon City, what used to be New York City. Thanks to use of experimental chemicals in the development of bioweapons, murderous mutants and beasts now roam the planet. A group of warrior women led by Rochelle are currently residing in an above-ground laboratory, along with Daria Solomon aka Doc (Veronica Orr), a scientist and defector who now wants restitution for her past sins, and "Larry the Male Bimbo" (Matthew Lewis). While out hunting in the woods, Rochelle is attacked and bitten by some red and black hairy monster that looks like a cross between a bird, a skunk and one of those cheap stuffed animals you can win at sleazy carnivals. She's able to make it back to the lab but is now infected and will rot from the inside out if nothing is done. The problem is that the only known cure is located in Armageddon City and Doc is now forbidden from going back there.

With their leader's life on the line, warrior woman Trianna (Gina Rydeen) decides to take over and stage a rescue attempt. She's instructed to choose a handful of her most trusted and skilled warriors, which she finds in Dillea (Jenny Admire) and Johnna (Lisa Cotton). The group first pin down a zombie invader and proceed to punch, kick and dismember it before one of the girls rips out its eyeball with her bare hands. Once they enter Armageddon City, the obese, greedy, corrupt, murderous and heavily-eyeshadowed Mayor Salacious Thatch (Deric Bernier), who was also responsible for murdering Trianna's family, is tipped off about the intruders. He orders his military commander, General Morbius (J.T. Taube), to send some goons to kill them, though the women are easily able to fend them off and rescue kidnapped sister Saffire (Stephanie Malone). Morbius reports back to Thatch that the female warriors are "heavily armed and really pissed off, kind of like ninja commandos, only with a great set of tits." Er. Ya.

After causing an earthquake (?) by knocking down a cross and having to fight some more zombies / mutants, the girls, plus John Apollo (Charles Monroe), an associate of Doc's who was sent there to help them out, find themselves being kidnapped and chained up in a prison cell by the bad guys. One of the ladies is dismembered and eaten by the cannibalistic mayor, which results in him eventually getting his hand cut off and crotch stabbed. Upon successful completion of their mission, one of the girls turns to the camera and announces the upcoming sequel.

While there's not a single aspect of this video that isn't ripe for mockery, whatever DIY Z-grade charm this manages to muster up is squashed by the constant ineptitude and time padding (with seemingly endless walking-around-the-woods shots), which grow monotonous very early on. People look directly at the camera (sometimes intentionally), laughter from the crew can be heard from off-screen and the main bad guy tells his underling he should "watch a good comedy like I Spit on Your Grave." The acting, dialogue, direction, costumes, editing, videography, sound and pretty much everything else is as bad as it gets, and yet this still could have been fun if Sheets only knew how to effectively work around his budget constraints. He even finds a couple of locations (a crumbling, graffiti'd up building in the woods; some urban settings) that could conceivably work to capture a post-apocalyptic mood yet insists instead on shooting most of this at a regular old school, with a library that they don't even bother trying to redress used for the bad guy's headquarters and a school health station with a lice poster on the front door used as the lab.

But there's an even worse offense here than that: The director thinking it would be a good idea to fill his movie with fight scenes, which he has zero clue how to stage, direct or edit. Weapons, fists and feet never make contact with bodies (something that could be hidden with proper camera angles, editing and post production work), sound effects are absent most of the time and the actors seem to be clumsily moving around in slow motion as if trying to remember what they're supposed to be doing next. And don't even get me started on all of the swordfights!

Sheets also appears here in a supporting role as a goon named Pringle, wrote the screenplay and cast the film (as "Roger Williams") and I'm pretty sure also did some of the metal music, which is credited to Enochian Key. The script, credited to "A/V Concepts," and editing, credited to "The Chopper," also also probably Sheets. The running time is barely over an hour. You may not even last that long.

NO STARS!