Slashers (3 Stars)

There have always been game shows on television, since before I was born. I watched a few when I was young. There was "The Golden Shot", in which the contestants had to fire a crossbow at a target. In "The Generation Game" people had to answer questions. Some games had big prizes, others smaller, but for the viewers it made no difference. It was all a matter of seeing the contestants, normal people like you and me, succeed or fail.

That was in the good old days when there were only two or three television channels that were broadcast about 10 hours a day. When television broadcasts were extended to 24 hours a day and the number of channels increased to hundreds game shows grew with them, in quantity if not in quality. In England -- I can't speak for other countries -- the most popular game shows were broadcast five or more days a week. Quiz shows like "Who wants to be a millionaire", "The Weakest Link" and "Countdown" were shown at the same time every day. People built their daily schedules around the game shows. When I visited my wife's grandparents I had to accept their schedule. When their favourite game shows were on television I had to sit silently and watch with them.

Not all game shows are about answering questions. Some demand physical activity, such as manoeuvring round an obstacle course or racing against one another. Some shows even involve fights between contestants, although the violence is contained to prevent injuries. Still, people dream of an extreme game show in which contestants fight to the death to win big prizes.

That's the premise for this film. In Japan there's a weekly game show called "Slashers", spelt "$la$her$". Six contestants have to enter a maze where they're stalked by three killers. Anyone who survives until the end of the show wins a large prize. It's not stated what the normal prize is, but at the beginning of this episode of "Slashers" the jackpot is $12 million, because nobody survived in the previous episode. There's also a $2 million bonus if the contestants kill any of the show's killers.

Today it's a special episode. For the first time all the contestants are all Americans, three men and three women. The show's killers this week are a preacher with a dagger, a redneck with a chainsaw and a doctor with a large pair of shears.

The film was made with a small budget, but that doesn't spoil it. It's a cheap television set, so the film has to look cheap to do it justice. The contestants stumble from one area to another: a warehouse, a shed, a castle, a honeymoon suite. The suite, called the Love Room, is a special area. Any couple that has sex in the suite is guaranteed three minutes in which they won't be attacked. Sweet.

The rules of the show are simple: there are no rules, except that during the commercial breaks no movement is allowed. That leads to amusing situations. The killers and the contestants are sometimes facing one another when the break starts. They stand in place trash talking for two minutes. Then the break ends, and they suddenly fight or run away.

The show's killers are exaggerated caricatures of serial killers, which works well in the context of the film. The show's contestants are all boring, and they let down the film with their poor acting. The idea behind the film is good, but I don't know if it could have been any better even with better actors. It's a trashy subject matter, so the whole impression of the film has to be trashy.

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