Surviving the Game (1994) from Scream Factory

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by Stringer-Bell

The sites review is now up.

Gotta love when posts like this fail to link the review: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Survi.../28279/#Review

I don't get this one...the dude slams the movie, but winds up giving it a 4-star rating? I guess he's solely basing the final score off the disc's technical merits.

[Yearbook]

I think this is a nigh perfect form of brain-dead entertainment.

[CreasyBear]

It must suck, reviewing movies when you hate practically every movie you see.

[Kakihara]

The movie reviews here, man…lol. The forums here are the only movie takes I take seriously on this site lol.

[Rocklandsboy]

Some of these reviewers have a truly bizarre way of describing the impact of music in their reviews... let me summarise:

Stewart Copeland's score for this movie is SUPERB!

[Stringer-Bell]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

Gotta love when posts like this fail to link the review: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Survi.../28279/#Review

I don't get this one...the dude slams the movie, but winds up giving it a 4-star rating? I guess he's solely basing the final score off the disc's technical merits.

Its literally on the home page of the site but sure - of all things to whine about.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by Stringer-Bell

Its literally on the home page of the site but sure - of all things to whine about.

Don't worry, I covered for your laziness and did your job for you. No Christmas card required!

[Member-222782]

Currently watching. Beautifully filmic transfer.

How many times has The Most Dangerous Game's plotline been recycled since that film came out in 1932? I'm only familiar with the two 90's films (this one and Hard Target). If I were to choose one of the 90's versions as my favorite, I'd pick HT. Surviving the Game is fun and the scenic backdrop is a huge plus but the action in HT is more to my liking. In any case, the "victims" getting back at their pursuers is easily the most rewarding thing about these films. No better feeling than tables turning lol.

EDIT: I wanted to add that the dialogue on this disc was really low. I'm only using a Stereo system but I don't think that's a detriment. I had to turn it up to hear anything. I wanted to use subtitles but they wouldn't turn on. Finally had to use headphones in the middle of the day.

[JasonMichael]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

Currently watching. Beautifully filmic transfer.

How many times has The Most Dangerous Game's plotline been recycled since that film came out in 1932? I'm only familiar with the two 90's films (this one and Hard Target). If I were to choose one of the 90's versions as my favorite, I'd pick HT. Surviving the Game is fun and the scenic backdrop is a huge plus but the action in HT is more to my liking. In any case, the "victims" getting back at their pursuers is easily the most rewarding thing about these films. No better feeling than tables turning lol.

I just want to chime in to credit the original short story that all these films have been adapted from, published Jan. 19, 1924 (100 years old next month!) The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell.

[Show spoiler]

This Wikipedia page lists 21 films adapted from it, and a whole bunch of TV episodes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adapta...Dangerous_Game

(My personal favorite TV version is the Get Smart episode, "Island of the Darned" featuring Harold Gould as the KOAS agent hunting Max.)

[Stringer-Bell]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

Don't worry, I covered for your laziness and did your job for you. No Christmas card required!

Thanks so much! Might I suggest in the future, a proper text hyper link looks a bit better than a messy raw url. Food for thought. Appreciate you though.

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

Beautifully filmic transfer.

I couldn't agree more. Just finished watching this projected at 150" diagonal. Very solid transfer and the audio was excellent as well. Bravo to Shout! for a most excellent Blu-ray release, a film which prior had ever only seen the light of day on DVD.

[oh_riginal]

For me Gary Busey has always made this film great. He's hilarious in parts, but for all the silliness of this movie, he gives a legit GREAT monologue in the middle of the first act. It's acted superbly, and really gives you the sense that he is going to be an important character, possibly the 2nd Antagonist behind Rutger Hauer. But no, that's not how it goes at all, but even that is kinda a twist in itself. I'm definitely giving this movie more credit that it probably deserves, but I love it for that.

[Filmmaker]

Originally Posted by oh_riginal

For me Gary Busey has always made this film great. He's hilarious in parts, but for all the silliness of this movie, he gives a legit GREAT monologue in the middle of the first act. It's acted superbly, and really gives you the sense that he is going to be an important character, possibly the 2nd Antagonist behind Rutger Hauer. But no, that's not how it goes at all, but even that is kinda a twist in itself. I'm definitely giving this movie more credit that it probably deserves, but I love it for that.

Yeah, it’s wild to discover the monologue wasn’t in the script or planned at all, which would have rendered Gary Busey’s character almost superfluous (shocking how far down one can fall 15 years removed from an Academy Award nomination), but he begged the director to let him just give his idea a try and, BAM!, created a moment that momentarily, impossibly elevated SURVIVING THE GAME, a (admittedly great) B-grade movie by any other metric, into the stratum of A-grade cinema. The scuttlebutt is that Rutger Hauer was pissed about the monologue because he saw it as Busey wresting the audience’s attention from Hauer and, frankly, he’s not wrong. Rutger is great in the movie, but Busey’s monologue is what stays with you weeks, months, years later when you reminisce about the film.

[oh_riginal]

Originally Posted by Filmmaker

Yeah, it’s wild to discover the monologue wasn’t in the script or planned at all, which would have rendered Gary Busey’s character almost superfluous (shocking how far down one can fall 15 years removed from an Academy Award nomination), but he begged the director to let him just give his idea a try and, BAM!, created a moment that momentarily, impossibly elevated SURVIVING THE GAME, a (admittedly great) B-grade movie by any other metric, into the stratum of A-grade cinema. The scuttlebutt is that Rutger Hauer was pissed about the monologue because he saw it as Busey wresting the audience’s attention from Hauer and, frankly, he’s not wrong. Rutger is great in the movie, but Busey’s monologue is what stays with you weeks, months, years later when you reminisce about the film.

It definitely gives the film more of an ensemble feeling, which is something I appreciated so much. It could have easily ended up summed up as “Ice T vs. Rutger Hauer & His Buddies” but almost every character gets a chance to shine in their villainy, with exception to the son since that actor was clearly out of his league being lined up with this great of a cast.

[Filmmaker]

Originally Posted by oh_riginal

almost every character gets a chance to shine in their villainy, with exception to the son since that actor was clearly out of his league being lined up with this great of a cast.

Well, to be fair to him, trying to hold your own against an older cast of that caliber surely wouldn’t be as easy as falling off a log. Oh…wait…

[oh_riginal]

Originally Posted by Filmmaker

Well, to be fair to him, trying to hold your own against an older cast of that caliber surely wouldn’t be as easy as falling off a log. Oh…wait…

Yeah, it’s not like this film was gonna score a Leo DiCaprio for that role or anything. But man, Rutger Hauer, Charles Dutton, Gary Busey, and F. Murray “Don’t Call Me Salieri” Abraham?? John C. McGinley was pretty much an unknown at the time, but he’s since gone on to prove himself quite a talent in his own right, making the recent revisit that much better.

[AmishParadise]

Below is a version of my "Surviving the Game" cover art that's specific to the Shout! release.


(Click on the preview image above to view the full size image.)

Previous iterations of the cover art are available via my previous post, here.

[oh_riginal]

Originally Posted by AmishParadise

Below is a version of my "Surviving the Game" cover art that's specific to the Shout! release.


(Click on the preview image above to view the full size image.)

Previous iterations of the cover art are available via my previous post, here.

That's pretty great. I'll definitely be using this!

[Metalbeast]

Originally Posted by oh_riginal

It definitely gives the film more of an ensemble feeling, which is something I appreciated so much. It could have easily ended up summed up as “Ice T vs. Rutger Hauer & His Buddies” but almost every character gets a chance to shine in their villainy, with exception to the son since that actor was clearly out of his league being lined up with this great of a cast.

The only other thing i've seen William McNamara in was Copycat and he wasn't great in that one either.

[MifuneFan]

Down to $18.31 at WM, and Amazon has matched

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Surviving...ray/5022920683