Death Game

Death Game (also known as The Seducers) is a 1977 American horror-thriller film directed by Peter S. Traynor and written by Anthony Overman and Michael Ronald Ross. The film stars Sondra Locke, Colleen Camp, and Seymour Cassel. Death Game tells the story of George Manning, a well-to-do San Francisco businessman, husband, and father who invites a pair of rain-soaked young women into his house to wait out an evening thunderstorm. The two girls seduce Manning and ultimately kidnap and torture him in his own home. Traynor, a former California real-estate financier, entered a career in filmmaking as a producer in the early 1970s, funding his projects through local investors. He purchased the script for Death Game to serve as his directorial debut. The film was shot primarily inside a large Los Angeles home with a small budget in only a couple of weeks during 1974 with a projected release the following summer. Production was allegedly plagued with on-set disputes among the first-time director and the cast, and eventually halted due to a federal investigation into Traynor's financing methods. The theatrical release of Death Game was delayed nearly two years. Critical reception for Death Game has been mixed among reviewers and motion picture journalists. While some read into the plot and violence as social commentary, others rejected it as meaningless exploitation. Death Game made unremarkable box office returns during its limited theatrical run, but found a greater audience with its home media releases in the years that followed. The movie has been remade a few times, including 2015's Knock Knock, directed by Eli Roth and starring Keanu Reeves. Traynor, Locke, and Camp all took part in this film's production.