{"id":44021,"date":"2024-09-12T11:18:45","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T15:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=44021"},"modified":"2024-09-12T15:29:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T19:29:20","slug":"all-fun-and-games-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/12\/all-fun-and-games-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"All Fun and Games (2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s really too bad that directors Eren Celeboglu, and Ari Costa\u2019s supernatural horror movie virtually came and went without much of a trace in 2023. It\u2019s not by any metric a complete masterpiece, but it sure is a fun little horror film packed with a lot of mythos that I wanted to learn a lot more about. \u201cAll Fun and Games\u201d is primarily about the fragility of the family unit and how this family known as the Fletchers are thrown in to disarray and pure chaos at the drop of a hat.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Fun and Games\u201d relies a lot on being as simple and straight forward as it possibly can and never really packs in any filler to the narrative. That\u2019s a very good aspect that kept me watching as the writers never waste their time on a lot of build up amounting to a movie barely clocking in at eighty minutes. So if you\u2019re in the mood for something that\u2019s filling but doesn\u2019t waste time, \u201cAll Fun and Games\u201d does the trick and it does it so well. Set in Salem, Massachusetts, a knife carved from bone with the words \u201cI Will Play, I Won\u2019t Quit\u201d scratched into it possesses anyone who repeats the full inscription.<\/p>\n

Thus a young group of teens is forced to play twisted versions of hide and seek hangman and flashlight tag, or else suffer bloody fates at the hands of the knife wielder. The narrative centers on three siblings and their mother, Jonah, Marcus, and Billie. One by one, they offer themselves up to the knife by repeating the inscription carved into it in order to save the possessed host and have to figure out how to destroy the curse lying within it. \u201cAll Fun and Games\u201d is essentially the introduction of a maniacal force of evil that delights in murder and violence, and how this family has to react to it and put an end to the carnage it unleashes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \u201cAll Fun and Games\u201d squeezes by thanks to feeling like an R rated take on gateway horror like RL Stine or whatnot and mixes a lot of great sub-genres like possession, hauntings, and its second chapter thrives on being a fun albeit slightly basic stalk and slash. All the while the surviving characters work toward decoding the mystery of the knife before everyone are murdered. The movie is beautifully directed and relies a lot on the gimmick of using games to not only repel the evil spirit, but also kind of defeating it.<\/p>\n

The whole cat and mouse shtick becomes a centerpiece for \u201cAll Fun and Games\u201d as the spirit engages in the idea of games and rules as a means of catching and tormenting his potential victims. The cast are all very strong in their collective roles including Natalie Dwyer, and Asa Butterfield, respectively. Not many will love how the writers lay down so much lore and never fully develop it, but I enjoyed the ambiguity and might even hold out hope that we get a follow up someday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Fun and Games\u201d is just great gateway horror and I appreciated its aesthetic and creativity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s really too bad that directors Eren Celeboglu, and Ari Costa\u2019s supernatural horror movie virtually came and went without much of a trace in 2023. It\u2019s not by any metric a complete masterpiece, but it sure is a fun little horror film packed with a lot of mythos that I wanted to learn a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[477,793,950,1008,1012,1087],"class_list":["post-44021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-horror","tag-possession","tag-slasher","tag-supernatural","tag-survival","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44021"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44028,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44021\/revisions\/44028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}