Blood Games (1990)

Every Friday we recommend a weirdo movie for you to watch. Hopefully something you've never seen, always something good.

I’ve been reading some reviews online for Blood Games and I’m hearing the same words over and over: “illogical”, “sexist”, “hilarious”, “trash”, “waste of time”.... Basically everyone is having fun shitting on Blood Games. It’s easy to write off a movie about a girls baseball team that’s hunted down by a mob of rednecks. Especially when the Australian title is Baseball Bimbos in Hillbilly Hell “Huk-huk-huk.” Oh look! I can make fun of stupid movies too!

Blood Games is a perfect example of what’s wrong with how people consume media today. Everyone is dying to put things in a box. To judge it and move on. Sure the first 20 minutes of Blood Games is retarded and hilarious but if you paid attention you might find there’s a little more to this “standard” rape-revenge flick than you thought.

Babe is the pitcher in an all girl baseball team named “Babe and the Ballgirls.” Babe’s father has pitted them against a local redneck baseball team coached by dads arch nemesis. When the all babe baseball team humiliates these “good-ol-boys” it’s a fight to the death to restore their honor and get some action!

"It's never just a game! How do you think I survived those god damn wars?"

Sound absolutely retarded, doesn’t it? Almost like a straight to video Troma film. Well that’s how it starts out. But as Blood Games moves forward a funny thing happens. The violence starts and all the goofing around is thrown out the window. The viewer finds himself in a real struggle to the death as the actors play their roles to the bone.

Now, I’m not saying the acting is spectacular, it’s not. And I’m not saying the script gets better, it doesn’t. What I’m saying is once the violence starts it never stops. The brutality goes on through the films as rednecks and women are picked off one by one. And while there isn’t a ton of gore, the girls really push themselves. It’s not scary necessarily it’s just dark. Really dark.

One thing that struck me about this rape-revenge, oh did I mention they get raped? Yeah. But one thing that struck me is I’m used to a formula where the first half of the film is super brutal. We watch the victim be humiliated and beaten to the brink of death. Then at some point the victim decides to fight back. From that point on the film is about revenge. And while the victim is always risking their life to enact that revenge, there’s something a little safe once we have gotten past the first half. Sure we don’t know where the last scene will take us, but for the mean time we get us some revenge.

(The rednecks are pretty awesome in Blood Games doing hilarious rednecky stuff like getting drunk, making condom balloons and arm wrestling over open flames!)

Not in Blood Games. No. What I love about Blood Games is both parties keep taking hits. Back and forth, redneck for woman. So you never really know whos gonna get hurt in the next confrontation. In fact the most brutal scene in the film is near the end! Sure this doesn’t turn the formula on it’s head but I found it a very affective twist.

An interesting aspect to the film is the director, Tanya Rosenberg, is a lady! Imdb lists absolutely no info about her besides this one film so I’m going to assume it’s a fake name. For all we know it’s not even a woman. Regardless, whoever did direct Blood Games did a pretty damn good job for the lousy script they were handed. The shots seem thought out and I think the choices to go extra hard on the dark scenes paid off.

One thing that struck me as odd was the gratuitous butt/panty shots. I’m not one to complain about seeing a girls butt in the frame but It got ridiculous. To the point that these girls are crying, laying down a girl with a gunshot wound, and they make sure to get a shot up the girls skirt! You know the butt shots are ridiculous when even I get offended!

So yeah, the dialogue is boring and empty, the story is totally illogical in some areas and the premise is beyond cheesy. That said the film is entertaining from beginning to end. It doesn’t change the way I watch movies and it didn’t melt my face, but Blood Games definitely deserves a second look.

I mean check out these butts! IMDB Blood Games HERE Buy Blood Games HERE Blood Games is also streaming on Netflicks!!