Deadly Games 4K 1989 Ultra HD 2160p

The movie is about a criminal in the costume of Père Noël (the French equivalent of Santa Claus), who, for unknown purposes, infiltrates a castle, where he starts a strange game with young Toma, who expects, like all children, presents for Christmas. However, Toma is not so simple either. He likes to play war, so for his amusement in the castle built a lot of tunnels and passages.

User Review

What was my surprise when I learned about another New Year's horror movie, which is positioned as a French answer to American slashers like “Silent Night, Deadly Night”, where the protagonist is a maniac in a Santa Claus suit. And my surprise was so high that I did not put off this movie until the New Year holidays, as I usually do, and proceeded to immediate familiarization.

The plot of the movie Deadly Games is about a boy named Thomas. He is a prodigy who has a very multitude of talents. And thanks to the fact that he is the son of the owner of a toy factory, he has not only the soil for the development of these talents, but also the space of imagination for games (for example, he converted a huge mansion, where he lives, in his playground). But despite this, he is still a child who desperately believes in Santa Claus. Believes so much that he is even willing to search for him on the Internet and correspond with him, naively believing that he is not communicating with a pedophile who is eager to take advantage of the child's naivety and find out his residential address.

In the end, what should have been the dream of any child, turns out to be a real nightmare. Instead of bringing joy to the child, Santa Claus, who has arrived at the child's home, begins to hunt directly for Thomas around the huge mansion. But that's only half the trouble. In addition to Thomas, there is his grandfather, a half-blind old man with diabetes, who needs protection as much as the child, and his mother, who is late for work, is on her way home and unaware of the danger.

It all sounds creepy, doesn't it? But does the movie do a good job of scaring the viewer? No. But it does a pretty good job of keeping the suspense. Having revealed the main antagonist, the events of the movie begin to unfold very rapidly and do not let go until the final credits. The location in the form of a large mansion also adds to the suspense, because this is the place that is home to the main character. And now, where he could feel safe, became a trap for him, because the mansion is big and the maniac can hide anywhere, and to calculate his location is not always easy. Plus the main characters are a child and an old man. And this gives an additional reason for empathy.

Of course, after this description the movie may cause an association with “Home Alone”, but these two movies are united only by the idea, which is that the child has to fight against the adult, using the features of his house and traps. It is impossible to say that this movie was released on the wave of success of “Home Alone”, because “3615 Santa Claus Code” was released in 1989, that is a year before the release of “Home Alone”. Yes, there are traps here, but they are not realized so well. True, the movie gives a logical explanation for this, because Thomas, unlike Kevin McCallister, did not know about the impending attack and was forced to use only what he had pre-made for his games, or what he managed to do on the fly. But to be honest, even what is shown in “3615...” looks a lot cooler than the traps in “Home Alone 4”.

As for the actors, there are only three I want to single out. Alain Lalanne, who played Thomas, played his role quite well. Up to the charisma, say, kids from “It” or “Very Strange Things” did not reach, but the necessary emotions he tried to give out and did not annoy. Not bad for a kid. True, if he did not mimic the heroes of 80s action movies, it would have been better. It looked funny at first, but then it started to look very silly. Louis Ducreux also played the grandfather pretty well. A sweet old man who loves his grandson very much and strives to protect him. But the trouble is that because of the peculiarities of his health, he needs protection even more than his grandson. Between these two actors felt a certain chemistry, I believed in their sincere friendship and therefore I wanted to empathize with them even more. And the main star for me was Patrick Fleurem as the maniac. His acting is beautiful. Alienated, embittered at the whole world man, who could not find his place in the world. The way he's drawn to children in the opening scene is creepy. And the further I got to know him, the scarier he became.

Now about the flaws. In addition to the above mentioned unnecessary references to the cult action movies of the 80s, the movie has stupidity (for example, by the end the maniac started to be stupid, although before that he showed that he was far from stupid) and unnecessary scenes (for example, the “help” of Thomas' best friend, which had no effect on anything). But the biggest disappointment was that the movie is not a slasher. Yes, there are murders in the movie. And you can't call a horror movie a slasher without good kills. And it's not very clear to me why this movie is called the answer to American films of this genre. If the French wanted to make a more intense horror film on a similar subject and thus emphasize that American films are not capable of such things, and take only exploitative elements, then this is indeed a worthy answer. But if not, it's not clear why it's being positioned that way? So if you want to see this movie just because you think it's a slasher, forget it. It will disappoint you in that regard.

For the rest of you, I want to recommend this movie. Despite all the flaws, it's a pretty good, even original in its own way, Christmas-themed horror movie, filled with suspense and tension. If you, like me, like to watch horror movies with Christmas themes, this movie is a good choice.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (89.7 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Info Audio

#French: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)

Info Subtitles