SHANNON’S DRIVE-IN: SURVIVING THE GAME

Shannon dives into an adaptation of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, 1994’s SURVIVING THE GAME, but does stand up to the test of time?

A homeless man is hired as a survival guide for a group of wealthy businessmen on a hunting trip in the mountains, unaware that they are killers who hunt humans for sport, and that he is their new prey.

Director: Ernest Dickerson

Writer: Eric Bernt

Stars: Rutger Hauer, Ice-T, Charles S. Dutton

Some ideas are just too good to let go. There are stories that inspire so many different retellings in our media sometimes we have to take a moment to stop complaining about stories being “ripped off” and start appreciating the beauty of reimaging a good idea.

Such is the case for the short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” written by Richard Connell and originally published in 1924. This dark tale of a big-game hunter stranded on an island only to become the hunted, not by the local wildlife, but by a Russian aristocrat has tickled and enticed the imaginations of many creators for over 100 years. The film versions are countless, including the original 1932 film version The Most Dangerous Game, 1987’s sexy sci-fi comedy Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity, John Woo’s first American movie and Jean-Claude Van-Damm-led action flick Hard Target, and 2020’s political action horror film The Hunt.

I first read the short story when I was in junior high. The first movie version I saw was the  USA Up All Night classic Surviving the Game.

Ice-T plays Mason, a homeless man just trying to survive on the streets. We follow him through his day-to-day, dumpster diving for food with his friend Hank (Jeff Corey). When the worse week ever happens to Mason, it’s through a chance meeting with Walter (Charles S. Dutton) where his luck begins to change.

Enter Burns (Rutger Hauer). You know this character is well off because his office has expensive art on the walls and he owns a pet parrot. He offers Ice-T an offer he can’t refuse (after he tests Mason’s endurance on a treadmill for a half hour, of course. Mason does it for a cool $20).

Mason is hired by Burns for a very vague work assignment, but Mason figures, hey, as long as the money keeps coming in, no worries.

When Mason is flown into the wilderness, we meet the rest of the cast of character actors. It’s this cast which elevates a B-grade action movie into something more. We already got Rutger Hauer and Charles S. Dutton, but now we’re given F. Murray Abraham, Gary Busey, and John C. McGinley in a holy hell of a great cast. They are all given character moments to shine for the duration of the film, especially Busey, who tells a coming-of-age story with all the batshit intensity and unhinged acting only he bring (although one has to wonder if director Ernest R. Dickerson just put the camera on him and told him to just be himself).

The next morning, the game begins.

The hunt itself is a wild, fast-paced romp through the wilderness as we watch Mason outwitting the rich weirdos for survival. As the hunt progresses, we’re shown they’re fucking around and finding out with the one person who has the instincts and know-how to pick them off. Mason also has a sense of humanity compared to the hunting party. It’s a duel between the privileged who do this shit for fun or, as they all agreed the night before at dinner, “therapy,” and a person who has serious trauma in his life and has had to figure out a plan to survive in a desperate situation.

The movie begins to slow down once the characters get picked off one by one. Watching them interact and watching the pieces of their backstories unfold keeps the momentum going. There’s still great character moments to be had though, building to the ultimate showdown between Mason and Burns.

The movie is a worthy retelling of the short story, fleshing out the darkness living inside these characters. Getting a sense of what makes them tick gives it more energy and the movie holds up well years after the release date. Surviving the Game gave me more meat to the tale I never appreciated reading in class at age twelve.

Shannon Grant is a writer, performer, adventurer, and horned cryptid living in the wilds of upstate New York. Her work can be found in many small press anthologies such as A Guide to Useless Sidekicks, Catskill Chaos, and The Lizzie Borden House Anthology. She is currently at work on a vampire novella. When not writing, she can be found haunting drive-in movie theaters, karaoke bars, and looking for ghosts in the woods.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.