Director: Edward McGown
Cast: Charlie Bewley, Jack Doolan, Jack Gordon, Mike Noble, Obi Abili, Daniel Elias
Running Time: 86 mins
Release Date:Â 8 July (streaming services)Â
BACHELOR GAMES is about a group of men who go hiking in the mountains of Argentina for a stag trip. They quickly become lost and realise something is following them.
It is difficult to review a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be. Alternatively titled Rules of the Game, the producers changed the name to Bachelor Games – a title that is slightly more logical than its previous one. It is currently being advertised as a dark comedy, described as The Hangover meets The Hills Have Eyes… it is not.
Watching Bachelor Games, it seems as if it started out as a straight thriller. Some guys get lost in the mountains and are slowly picked off one-by-one by a mysterious creature. There are a few moments of comedy in the first act, the banter between the friends is pretty realistic and sounds like the sort of stuff people would say at a stag do. There are also some moments of unintentional comedy towards the end when the plot somehow becomes ridiculous yet still tedious.
The plot starts off simple enough, but the twist at the halfway point makes no sense and is incredibly confusing. Up until this point, it was an hour of bickering and beer, briefly flirting with the integral plot detail of an ancient spirit that hunts down the immoral. Bachelor Games seems to forget that plot detail quite a lot and instead focuses on long scenes detailing pranks and pointless exposition that does nothing but confuse viewers even more.Â
Overall, Bachelor Games fails to be a comedy or a horror. There are a few funny moments in the beginning, but the comedy quickly dies off. The murdering spirit is scarcely seen and when it is, it looks incredibly generic. It’s a terribly dull film with no qualities that could have potentially saved it.Â
Verdict
