Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

Directors: Nicolas Wendl, Dani Abraham

Writers: Tanner Adams, Nicolas Wendl, Dani Abraham

Jaxon and his friend Rex are excited for a fun game night with three attractive women. However, when their third friend backs out at the last minute, Jaxon panics, insisting they need a third person to join them. In a pinch, they convince their building’s handyman, Stanley, to tag along. What starts as a promising evening quickly devolves into one of the worst nights of their lives.

Directed by Nicolas Wendl and Dani Abraham, the 2024 horror movie Stupid Games features an intriguing premise: a board game (refreshingly, not a Ouija board) that turns out to be deadly for its players. Flatmates Celeste (Alyssa Tortomasi), Riley (Cass Huckabay), and Mia (Ashwini Ganpule) host the flirty Jaxon (Saad Rolando), his best friend Rex (Gage Robinson), and handyman Stanley (Grant Terzakis) for a dinner-game night.

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At 1 hour and 26 minutes, Stupid Games takes far too long to deliver its scary moments while struggling to establish its character profiles. The horror elements are thin, and the plot leans heavily on character interactions to maintain interest. Unfortunately, the protagonists and their banter aren’t particularly engaging. Alyssa Tortomasi’s Celeste comes across as a watered-down version of a Mean Girls character, with none of Regina George’s sassiness or screen presence. Celeste dominates Riley and Mia, who are quite different from each other—Riley seems to channel a sexy Britney Spears vibe, while Mia is harder to pin down but is implied to be the smarter one. Stanley is the only character with some depth; he’s a nervous, nerdy, shy guy with a keen interest in Greek mythology, while the other men are simply looking to get lucky with the women. So perhaps, if you’d want to root for someone, it would have to be Grant Terzakis’ Stanley, who wasn’t even supposed to be part of the date night.  

Most of the action in Stupid Games takes place in Celeste’s flat during a power outage, with the group playing a board game by candlelight. From the start, it’s clear that the hosts—the three women—are hiding something sinister, and there’s a sense of impending doom lurking in the flat. The setting may remind horror fans of the Australian movie Talk to Me, which fully embraces its supernatural themes with a mix of ghosts and laidback teens partying. Stupid Games lacks the energy, wit, and intensity that made Talk to Me a gritty horror standout.

The climactic moments of Stupid Games finally ramp up the supernatural elements, however, it still doesn’t deliver any hair-raising or nail-biting moments. The ending, though humorously satisfying, feels out of sync with the film’s otherwise dramatic tone. Given the mild horror, violence, and blood, this movie might have worked better as a horror-comedy. If you’re in the mood for a low-stakes, board-game-themed horror movie, Stupid Games might be worth a try.

You can watch ‘Stupid Games’ on the Mometu app.

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