Kidnapping? It's All Just Fun and Games: Evil Games Review

There are very few rational, albeit sane, reasons for kidnapping someone, and social mobility is certainly not one of them.

Evil Games is the most recent film from Spanish director Adrian Garcia Bogliano, the director of 2012’s Here Comes The Devil and also B is for Bigfoot, the amusing and somewhat grisly segment that was featured in the impressive ABC’s of Death anthology horror film. It stars Francisco Barreiro as an unsatisfied accountant desperately wishing for a shred of luck. He once had goals, goals that he has failed to achieve. Instead, he feels invisible in a lifeless marriage and works overtime for no extra cost. Yes, the kind of man so dangerously detached from his surroundings that he has given up and resorted to searching ‘how to perform a chokehold’ on the office computer. Finally deciding that enough is enough, he hatches a scheme to steal the job role he feels he rightfully deserves.

Whilst this is essentially a film about a kidnapping, it never feels claustrophobic. The victim is trapped, afraid and alone, but we never really get to feel that. We merely see it, and the room the prisoner is held captive in is often shot in a way that enhances the size of the room they are in, weakening a sense of dread that is often communicated in films of this nature. This would not be so important if there were an enticing protagonist to steal the focus, but once his desperation is addressed he is left underdeveloped and succumbs to a spiral of deprivation, which would be fine, but is done in a way that is less than gripping.

At times it can feel quite cleverly constructed, but as the narrative progresses it seems to confide increasingly on outlandish coincidences and erratic character motivation. Certain things that the characters manage to obtain seem totally far-fetched, and as this becomes a pressing concern for the plausibility of the narrative, Bogliano amplifies the scenes of violence to remain appealing to genre fans.

Occasionally, there is some experimental and gratifying camerawork on display, which helps maintain engrossment as more predictable plot points are introduced. Furious camera movement and sporadic evidence of enthusiasm with unconventional lighting techniques help make this film more interesting than it could have been, and despite a resolve that feels sloppy and toilsome, Evil Games is adequately paced and frugal in its appropriate run-time length.

4/10

Written by Chris Weston