Verdict
Summary
An uneasy mixture of campus comedy and stalk-and-slash suspense gives TAG: The Assassination Game an unusual adult-oriented flare that might have alienated younger viewers expecting a frat house action-type farce. As is, the film is pretty mature for a PG-rated movie, but it has a refreshing grown-up mentality firmly rooted in noir territory as it doesn’t pander to its audience or look down on its hero, the character that Carradine plays. The romance angle is sweet and convincing, and the campus shenanigans (such as they are) are fun.
Plot:
A college campus game turns deadly.
Review:
The hottest trend on college campuses is TAG – a game where coeds hunt each other down and shoot suction darts at each other, vying for supremacy. The rules are vague, but some of the players take the game very seriously. Susan Swayze (a fetching Linda Hamilton pre-Terminator) is new to the game, but she’s one of the best players, and she stumbles into the dorm of a voracious reader of pulp novels who happens to be a campus journalist. The writer – Alex Marsh (Robert Carradine pre-Revenge of the Nerds) – is smitten with her in a heartbeat, but when she abruptly leaves, he has no idea how to find her except that she’s a competitor in TAG. He uses his skills as a journalist to track her down, and using a tactic that he’s going to write a story about the phenomenon of TAG, he manages to work his way into her schedule. As he tries to win her heart, she’s also deep into the game, which might seem harmless enough, but one particular player (played by Bruce Abbot pre-Re-Animator) has gone over the edge with the game and is using a real gun – and real bullets – to eliminate players. When it’s just down to Susan and the maniac, Alex has to help save the day and be the hero he only reads about in his mystery novels.
An uneasy mixture of campus comedy and stalk-and-slash suspense gives TAG: The Assassination Game an unusual adult-oriented flare that might have alienated younger viewers expecting a frat house action-type farce. As is, the film is pretty mature for a PG-rated movie, but it has a refreshing grown-up mentality firmly rooted in noir territory as it doesn’t pander to its audience or look down on its hero, the character that Carradine plays. The romance angle is sweet and convincing, and the campus shenanigans (such as they are) are fun. Gotcha!, a similar movie starring Anthony Edwards, came a few years later, and I liked that one even better. Nick Castle (The Last Starfighter) directed.
Synapse Films has just released a Blu-ray of this one, restored, and looking and sounding better than it’s ever been. The 2K transfer is fantastic, bringing the image to a new vibrancy in widescreen, and the disc comes with an audio commentary by Nick Castle and Carradine (who recently passed away, which makes it all the more precious), and the trailer.
