Thursday, August 14, 2008

Blast From the Past:--TAG: The Assassination Game

Over at io9 ("Strung Out on Science Fiction") they've been yakking about "the very best scifi death sports captured on film," including my particular favorites, Rollerball and Death Race 2000 (the originals, not the trashy remakes, thank you very much).

Quick aside: part of what I loved about Death Race 2000 was a young Sylvester Stallone as Machine Gun Joe Viterbo...well, at least his car. Check it out--twin Thompson .45s and a big-ass bayonet dead center, perfect for driving the, uh, seedier parts of Richmond, VA.


But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

No, see, among the more obvious films under consideration (Mad Max: Beyond Blunderdome) was one I was beginning to think no one besides myself had ever seen: T.A.G.: The Assassination Game, starring, of all people, Linda (Terminator) Hamilton!

It's a silly, predictable, almost-suspenseful movie about college students playing a game that suddenly becomes all-too-real, who will live, who will die, blah blah blah, but oh! The game!

Yep, there really is an assassination game known variously as Assassin(s), Killer, KAOS (Killing As An Organized Sport), Gotcha! and so forth and so on...

From one website:
"The basic idea of KAOS is simple. Each player receives a weapon and a target to hunt. Annoying constraints such as lawsuits and noise complaints from elderly inhabitants prevent us from using actual firearms. These are replaced by silent, non-lethal plastic guns of dubious South-East Asian origin. In any case, each player is being hunted by another player. If you are killed by your hunter, you are out of the game. If you survive and make your kills, you live. Eventually, only one player remains."

...and I want to play. Sweet Jeebus, do I want to play! Plenty of rules and logistical considerations online and there's even a (sadly, out-of-print, but I have a copy) book. Click the pics for further info.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with this idea, problems as in (1) personally, I don't know enough people in one location who'd be interested, much less mature enough to not get, shall we say, carried away and (2) in these days of heightened Homeland Security a bunch of people running around with ersatz weaponry and no interest in a loooong vacation at Guantanamo Bay could possibly generate a few...problems.

*sigh*

One more thing for my list of fantasy doings.


3 comments:

JSaM said...

I really don't care about any of that, what about Linda Hamilton? James Cameron shouts, "I'm King of the World!" and I get this peculiar image in my noggin! (God help me!)

G. W. Ferguson said...

Ah, well, Linda (woof! woof!) Hamilton. There's a reverse Cat People-like scene where she reels in a "victim" by stripping down and swimming in the university pool. That's a very Tenth Victim scenario and equally capable of generating, uh, peculiar images!

Capcom said...

Wow, the Tenth Victim! I saw that on late night TV when I was a teenager, and the running theme song has haunted me ever since. Another great movie that they should never spoil by doing a remake of...Tarantino will probably create a copycat "hommage" of it soon enough though. :-p