Name of the Game is Kill, The

US home video premiere of forgotten low-budget shocker
THE NAME OF THE GAME IS KILL (1968) is a film that has been difficult to view for decades. After a nearly ten year gestation period from script to finished product, the film opened one day after Robert Kennedy was murdered. As a result of that disastrous timing, the film sunk like a stone in most markets. It finally appeared on local TV stations in the early 1970's under the arguably better alternate title THE FEMALE TRAP. It has seldom been seen since.

VCI now presents the American home video debut of this nearly forgotten, low-budget psychodrama. Based on a real life family (!), the story follows a Hungarian refugee (played by Jack Lord right before HAWAII FIVE-O) who's adrift in a small Arizona town. An attractive young woman (Susan Strasberg) picks him up on a highway and brings him home to meet her weird family, which includes her loopy mother and her two oddball sisters. The siblings each have conflicting recollections of a dreadful event from their distant...

Essential drive-in DVD of the year
I bought this mainly because I think Tisha Sterling is one of the most alluring beauties from the seventies. This is a great role for her, and she does a dance that is an iconic perfomance in and of itself. That said, all of the other actors (and there aren't many of them!) are good, even the brief appearance of Mort Mills (Psycho -- the highway patrolman) is good, with perhaps a nod back to his earlier role. Jack Lord, Susan Strasberg, and Collin Paxton make their roles memorable. Best of all this was lensed by no less than Vilmos Zsigmond (Deliverance, Heaven's Gate, The Deerhunter) who might as well be a second director due to the quality of his cinematography. The movie itself is a bit confusing and in the end just ok -- I enjoyed the atmosphere, cinematography, and general wierdness a lot more. This DVD has abundant extras, including an amusing making of documentary (interviews with Zsigmond, Joe Dante, and the screenwriter, Gary Crutcher, as well as the lead vocalist for the...

Watch out for the Girls
This is a very good movie if you are into horror. Jack Lord is very good as the Hungarian drifter (not a bad accent either)
The woman are enough to scare the living daylights out of you. Won't let the secret out (but if you are a movie buff like me you will have guessed the ending) This movie made in 1968 just before Hawaii 5-0. Jack Lord in very convincing as the hitch- hiker, perhaps one would say the Hungarian was in fact stupid to hang around. Good watching (day-time the best time to watch)

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