- Directed by Alvaro de Arminan
- Written by Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor
- Stars Mike Vogel, Eliza Dushku, Iman Nazemzadeh
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TXupLZg7is
Spoiler Free Judgment Zone
This is in the trope of a group of friends who are destined to get killed off in a certain order in creative and horrible ways. There are some elements that make it interesting: the cast is attractive, and it’s well-made overall. So it gets more of a thumbs up than down, but it’s not a stand out for being unique or special.
Synopsis
We watch as a woman is tortured, books are burned, and monks chant, all in 1485. Snakes are everywhere, and it’s all very gothic. One monk has a box to be burned, but he sets it aside at the last minute.
We cut to modern-day Spain, where a bunch of young people are out surfing and credits are rolling.
Jason and Tomas watch Erica on the beach, and Jason likes what he sees. We cut to the cemetery, where Detective Izar gets a call about a very strange corpse that’s been skinned alive.
We see a guy with no legs in a wheelchair, and he’s got that old box we saw in the hands of the monk earlier. He talks to Jason about voodoo, but Jason doesn’t believe any of that nonsense. He gives Jason a board game called Mamba, which is said to be very old. We’ve seen that box before.
Erica introduces herself to Jason at a party that night. They look at the board game and decide to play. Helene and Tomas argue about Lisa. Suddenly, the power goes out for the whole party; it rains, so the party breaks up.
They all get together and play the game. There are dice and cards [printed in English], and they all take a turn. Tomas and Jason do well, but Pablo picks up a bad card, so he’s out. Since he can’t play, he takes the car for more beer. He stops to pee next to the road, falls off a cliff, and is eaten alive by crabs.
Back at the game, Miguel also picks up a death card. Lisa and Helena lose as well, and eventually, so does Tomas. Only Jason and Erica haven’t lost yet, but there can be only one winner. Meanwhile, Detective Izar finds and identifies Pablo’s body. He comes to the house and tells them about Pablo.
We cut to Pablo’s funeral. Erica mentions that the text of the card that Pablo got and what actually happened to him are coincidentally the same. They go back to her place, and he sees that she’s got lots of occult-ish books.
At a photo shoot, Miguel, Lisa, and Tomas photograph her dancing and posing near a lumber yard. Lisa starts feeling bad, so she and Tomas get back in the car to leave. Miguel stays behind to clean up, and it looks like the lumber machines are out to get him. Nope; a bajillion giant black snakes bite him. Later, the detective hears that they were black mamba snakes.
Jason and Erica see Pablo and Miguel next to the road. Almost immediately, he gets a call about Miguel being dead. His game card mentioned being killed by venom, and that’s what happened. They tell Tomas and Lisa about that, but they don’t believe it.
Jason looks up the Mamba game and reads about its history online. The board game is made from blood and flesh. Those who play and lose, die. Those who win, get their fondest desires.
Lisa is up next. Her card mentions something about two sides of a mirror. She’s still feeling ill, and some of her hair is falling out. In the morning, Tomas wakes up to find that Lisa has aged about ninety years; she’s an old woman now. Tomas tells the detective about the game, and the detective asks Jason and Erica about the game.
Helene is next, and she knows it, arguing with Tomas about leaving. She gets in the car and heads home to her country but burns to death in a car accident instead. Jason and Erica go to find a guy named Malek, and it turns out he’s the wheelchair guy from before, only now he’s got legs; he must have gotten his wish. He says that he got the game from his brother, the skinned-alive man from the beginning.
Tomas, Jason, and Erica go home, and the detective is waiting there for them with his gun; he wants the game. Jason runs off with the game, but Detective Izar kidnaps Tomas. Jason and Erica play the game a second time, alone, to see who ends up actually winning. Erica quickly loses. Still, it’s only 50/50 that he can win the game; if he wins, he gets his wish; if he loses, he’ll be skinned alive.
Detective Izar says that with the box, he can get his dead wife and son back, and he makes Tomas dig a grave at gunpoint.
Jason wishes it was a week ago and that everything that happened would be undone. Izar calls and demands the game before shooting Tomas. Erica says that Jason won’t get his wish until she dies;_ then _the wish will come true. He throws the board game out the window of the lighthouse.
Knowing that she has to die in order to undo everything, Erica takes her surfboard out at night. He doesn’t find her, but he does find the board game, more or less intact. Izar comes up behind him and demands the game; Jason is more than happy to comply since passing on the game is another requirement of getting his wish. The detective leaves with the box.
Jason watches as Mamba, the original witch of the board game, comes to him. She tells him that his wish is essentially a time loop, and he needs to ask for something else. He insists, so she grants him what he wants.
All the bad stuff un-happens.
Since the entire week was undone, Jason doesn’t remember anything, and he does exactly the same things all over again to start the game going again.
Commentary
After the first death, it starts to resemble the “Final Destination” films closely. You know who’s going to die and in what order, but not necessarily how they’re going to get it. It’s got a few extra rules, but it’s similar.
It’s fine. It’s well-made and looks good. If you like Final Destination, here is some more of the same.