SIMON SAYS

Simon and Stan are two young twins. Simon suffers from a mild mental delay and therefore receives more care and attention from his parents; Stan, on the other hand, forced to live in his brother's shadow, harbors a certain jealousy towards Simon. One morning, while the two brothers are left to play freely in the woods, Stan proposes playing the game "Simon Says" and in a whirlwind of madness tries to eliminate his brother Simon. This is the story told by an old legend of a small mountain village where five young campers have decided to spend a weekend under the sign of fun. The young people, intending to stay in the woods, do not know that their weekend will not be as carefree as they hoped from the moment they discover that the legend has a basis in truth: the two brothers, Simon and Stan, live in the woods and will begin to hunt the young campers with dangerous traps scattered among the trees. In recent years, the horror genre has been very prolific; it is impossible to deny it because, now, there are many films of this genre that month after month invade the cinemas and, even more gratifying, is the fact that often such films manage to obtain a fair success even at the box office. This is a clear and evident proof that the horror genre has really been reborn and is once again capable of arousing interest and admiration. But if there are many horror films that are proposed to us for the film market, even more numerous are the horrors that see the light in our country in the only home video market. Here, "Simon Says - Play or Die" is precisely one of those films that, although in Italy it was distributed as a direct-to-video, manages to easily entertain and amuse the viewer who, it is presumed, is interested in seeing a carefree party under the sign of splatter and healthy violence. Made in 2006 by William Dear (who writes and directs it) but imported into our country in 2007 thanks to the distributor DNC, "Simon Says" presents itself as a delicious slasher, enriched also by a good and never out-of-place component of black humor; quite scarce in the main ideas (if you are looking for an original product it is better to stay away from this film) but that manages to satisfy thanks to a good imagination in the construction of the murders and a high and massive gore/splatter component. The screenplay, therefore, does not worry at all about finding original and never-before-seen loopholes, to the point that it is possible to find elements taken from "Don't Open That Door" (which returns forcefully in every film and which here is also verbally paid homage to in a very ironic way that alone is worth the cost of the rental), from "Wrong Turn", from "The Wax Mask" of 2005 and so on; and even the characters who will serve as cannon fodder have a psychological characterization as subtle as a sheet of paper, but all this does not damage the film because the viewer will be watching the film with a rowdy and carefree air paying attention only to the tasty murders and trying to guess who will be the next victim. As already mentioned, the film puts a lot of emphasis on the splatter sector showing mutilated, impaled, sawn bodies and reaching, at times, peaks at the limit of the possible that will do nothing but entertain the viewer (the little dog that is literally smashed with a kick is noteworthy). Even the cast, this time, seems slightly superior to the average of products always destined only for the home video market because enriched by the good performance of Crispin Glover ("Willard - The Paranoid") here faced with a double interpretation (it is his face for both brothers, Simon and Stan) and perfectly cast in the role. In conclusion, "Simon Says - Play or Die" is a more than successful slasher, not very original but rich in imagination in the murders and in splatter, that rises far above the average of the classic products that periodically invade the shelves of video stores. It deserves a viewing.