The Friendship Game (2022) User Reviews

a mess

[SnoopyStyle · 3/10 · 20 January 2023]

Zooza (Peyton List), Rob Plattier (Brendan Meyer), Courtney (Kelcey Mawema), and Cotton Allen (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) are longtime small town best friends. They are set to scatter after graduation. Cotton buys the mysterious Friendship Game at a yard sale. The friends have to tell their deepest secret desires. Their friendship survives if they survive. Cotton disappears and the friends' desires start coming true. There is also a hacker who recorded their game session.

The plot is a mess. My first suggestion is to get rid of the computer hacker. I don't get his character. In addition, the simple gameplay gets muddied by bad story telling. It's all a mess. There is a simple idea here somewhere. It's not necessarily a good horror idea, but more clarity would help this movie a lot.

Not worth it, unfortunately

[rileyfayesageblyth · 3/10 · 1 December 2022]

I really tried to like this movie and give it a good try, I think the concept was good and I was excited to see this put together especially with Peyton List, to see her take on horror and see what she could show us.

However, the main motives of the movie were never solved which has been a major problem for most, the characters were meant to be challenged and it's easy to say the characters haven't been challenged very much, with the switching back and forth of characters making it a confusing way of conveying the story too.

Could have been a short episode to bring some interest but definitely not good as a whole movie Again, really tried with this one to make it make sense and add theory but there's not enough given there.

The Confusion Game: The Stupidity Box (In-Depth Analysis)

[panagiotis1993 · 3/10 · 15 November 2022]

''Have your friendships survived?'' WOW! That was one stupid movie! Where is Pinhead and the Cenobites btw? Lol. This movie has one of the most ridiculous names and concepts I've ever seen. IMDB says this movie is science fiction, I don't really see the ''sci-fi'' anywhere in this film. Its more like horror/thriller/fantasy. We basically have a magic box/cube, that's the best way to describe it I think, that tests the friendship of 4 teenagers. After talking to the box/cube about their deepest desires we see that one teenager vanishes and their friendship starts falling apart, also somehow the box grants their wishes?

The characters start hallucinating, having nightmarish visions. Is this box an entity? A demon? A genie, is it haunted by John Wick's evil spirit? I don't get it, and why is it so obsessed with people's friendships? We don't get any explanation about why or how the box was created. Also what's up with this creepy middle-aged woman who gives the box to the teenagers? Is she some kind of witch or demon? Why would she put these teenagers in this kind of awful situation? We never get an answer, it's dumb. Also we got a kid, I don't know how old he is, he seems to be 10 or 12. He is basically a stalker and a hacker, he has no friends and all he does all day long is watching people through their cameras and he has a really huge collection of private videos he records.

He is also able to mess with people's phones. How the hell a kid can be such an advanced hacker? Only the writers know. We see that the cube is also able to mess with their memories, their computers, their phones, their minds, their actions, their vision, their faces and even take the form of a human like it did with Kyle. Is this box God himself? And why is everybody glitching all the time? What's up with that? Is this box a PC virus or something? The closer we get to the end of the movie the more confusing and convoluted it gets. The box possesses teenagers, it has a voice and a will and it wants souls, this box is definitely Pinhead in disguise, damn this plot is atrocious. The last 30 minutes of the movie are a badly written bad trip, it's insufferable, nothing makes sense. And the movie ends where it started.. everybody is safe? Was it all a dream? Did they pass the test? Someone else gets the box? The middle-aged woman is back at it again? What? What? What? I'll be kind and I'll give it a 3/10 because the first hour of the movie was kind of decent. Don't waste your time!

Trash

[sickestskater69 · 1/10 · 20 September 2023]

The real friendship game is asking your friends to watch this and then seeing if they remain friends with you.

This starts off fine, but within 5 minutes it goes downhill into a confusing poorly written and directed mess. It is so difficult to figure out what is going on: Is this real? Is this a flashback? Is this a flashforward? Certain scenes will replay again line for line or scenes will repeat with slight variations. The movie continues on being like this until it reaches its conclusion which ends up being even worse than the rest of the movie. Multiple people were involved in this movie: someone actually wrote this garbage, someone else directed it and along the way no one involved said anything about how bad it was.

Maybe there's an alternate timeline/universe where this is a good movie.

Teen angst at it's dullest

[ant36au · 2/10 · 20 November 2022]

A confusing, teen angst movie that makes a terrible attempt at trying to be clever and when that fails tries to cover it up with what can only be described as 1970's artsy fartsy poor horror/scifi movie effects that don't hide anything I was honestly expecting the hurdy gurdy man song to start playing for most of this nonsense that in the end amounted to absolutely amounted to a nothing in a nothing movie, about four nothing teens doing nothing but being miserable in a horror movie that isn't a horror movie but a teenage angst movie that is as dull as watching paint dry on growing grass in the middle of winter.

WTF did I just watch?

[CR38 · 1/10 · 1 January 2024]

Please do yourself the biggest favor and spare yourself the hour and some change of your life that you will never get back watching this mess of a film. Honestly, the characters are vapid, shallow people you never truly care about, the story is a confusing mess, and you never truly get what the hell is happening in any given time, scenes just repeat over and over for no reason as it doesn't add much to anything. It dragged so hard because of it... Get to the point already in which they never did. They tried to make this edgy and cool mix of a sort of Hellraiser, Wish Upon, Ground Hog Day type fiasco and it ended up confusing and plain stupid.

If this is how 2024 is beginning for me choosing this wreck of film to watch, I hope the rest of the year isn't as bad. Geesh.

Friendship lame?!

[Stanlee107 · 2/10 · 5 December 2022]

This is a low budget sci-fi thriller that over does the flashback scenes to attempt to entertain the viewer. It is shot with a nostalgic tinge & shot intentionally to "try" & give it that "edgy" feel.

This fails in all the important areas that make a good film. The characters are very bland and one dimensional. This makes it hard for the viewer to relate and emphasise with what happens to them. The story is jarring and boarder line boring.

The story hinges on the notion of if this group of "friends" can survive the ultimate supernatural friendship test. However, the bigger test is for the viewer to fight the urge to quit watching until the very end. I lost count on the numbers I fought this urge. If only the writers had fought harder and wrote a better film they would be proud of!

Worst Movie

[tsun-65048 · 1/10 · 12 September 2023]

This movie went from 0 to -100 real quick. Whoever wrote this, your storyboards a mess. All of a sudden they aren't friends? Crazzyy. I'm no movie producer but what the hell, the dialogue made no sense. And why did the boy who porked all the girls have a haircut like that? And was the girl , Cotton, have a wig on? Or are they trying to have the viewers believe that her hair. And why was a little boy filming other kids porking. That's just weird. I finished the movie and i twas just weird. They also got a fishbowl lens goin on cause that girl with the bad green hair always looked like Sid from ice age.

One of, if not the, worst film I've seen all year. Why was this movie even made?

[manuelasaez · 3/10 · 24 November 2022]

Having been sorely disappointed by 2022's Hellraiser reboot, I was admittedly drawn in my the contraption shown in the trailer. Eerily reminiscent of the puzzle box seen in the aforementioned film, I decided to give this film a chance where I normally wouldn't have even bothered (horror movies starring teenagers get an automatic, "No, thanks!" in my house). Man, I really should have listened to my intuition. This movie is what happens when you have a cool concept, make it for the lamest audience possible, and call it a day. Seriously, what were the people responsible for this thinking and how were they given a budget to make it reality?

The biggest problem this movie has are the wholly unlikable characters. You have the moppy depressed one, the drug user, the typical insufferable teenage girl, and the lame male best friend, each one more awful than the next. All of them are drug users and alcohol drinkers, so that was an huge put-off for me. But then the movie wants you to constantly jump time frames and locations, so that you're wondering if what you just watched was happening in real time, a version of the past, a version of the future, or none of the above? If it weren't for their acting, which was actually really well done, these characters would have sealed what was an already unwatchable film. But you know what they say about people with unnaturally colored hair? Yeah, that's what you're going to be seeing for an hour and a half. I should have turned it off as soon as I saw it.

The only reason I'm giving this movie any stars are; A. The acting- talent is talent, and despite how much I disliked every single character, they actually did a great job with the trash script they were given.

B. The "game" itself is actually really dope looking, and when the center sphere starts rotating it actually looks really slick.

DO NOT waste your time on this movie. It is not even recommended to the most forgiving of horror movie fan, let alone the general public. It has almost no redeemable qualities. Luckily, it's the type of movie that will be ignored and forgotten by most people.

I can't in good conscious recommend this movie to anyone.

The Friendship Garbage

[lastsonnofkrypton · 4/10 · 3 December 2023]

There's an interesting idea buried somewhere in this movie, but the plot and script are too obtuse to find it. If you could figure out what in the world was going on, you faired better than I did. The best parts of it were the opening few minutes and the closing few. The rest is all just confusing.

Was it all a dream? Whose dream was it? Did none of it happen? Did they all kill Cotton? Did Cotton kill herself? Did Robbie kill them all? What the hell was the point of the computer kid? He served no purpose that furthered the "plot" other than to make you wonder if the whole thing was a computer simulation. To that point, what was with all the characters glitching, and the computer file stuff? How did a d-bag with a haircut like that bang all 3 chicks?? The only real answer I can give you is that by end, you really won't care about any of it.

The only positive things I can say is that the acting and music were 'ok'. I hope Peyton List keeps doing horror/suspense films, despite this stinker.

4/10, would not watch again.

The gworls that get it get it

[jyvwyzy · 10/10 · 11 September 2023]

It was confusing and bizarre, the performances kept me adequately engaged, i think its was beautifully shot and the writing could be profound at times and light and fun sometimes. It was better than i expected and well worth the time if youre scrolling hulu looking for something to pass the time, during a casual movie night with friends, searching for meaning, etc. The ending is kind of underwhelming but idk i didnt hate it. Overall just a satisfying movie with a consistent tone & quality. I cannot stress enough that this was a delivery. As Olivia Rodrigo once said im sure ive seen much better movies but i really cant remember when. Or something along those lines. Im giving it a ten because i think its certified underrated.

Friends to the End

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 17 March 2023]

Cotton (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) picks up the Friendship Game at a yard sale. It didn't have the original box, but it was still $10.00. The rules are simple. You place one finger on the octagon and say out loud your inner most desire. If you survive the game, you will be friends forever. If not you die. The teens play the game and they are placed in various settings and various outcomes testing their friendship. The first setting has them at a party drinking. Zooza (Peyton List) and Robbie (Brendan Meyer) hook-up while drunk and this was overseen by Cotton who runs out. Cotton is now missing while the others try to solve the mystery as to what happened, sometimes watching themselves on the computer. They play the game and begin to wonder if there is a universe where they don't die.

It was a semi-interesting film which seemed to be more science Fiction than horror. Four good characters.

Guide: F-word. Sex. No nudity.

Convoluted Attempt at Teen Sci-Fi

[J-Kidin · 1/10 · 19 September 2023]

I couldn't tell if this convoluted attempt to create a film was the fault of of the director or the writer, because the results of both are just so bad. Firstly the story makes no sense. Well it started with an idea, about an object that magically tests friendships, but after that it falls apart. Yes it literally falls apart after the first five minutes of the movie. The story meanders, gets weird and confusing and seems like the writer didn't know how to get the beginning of the story, to the end of the story. All the loose ends, and questions this film leaves are just frustrating, especially the question " How the heck did this film even get made?!!!". It's like someone who starts telling you something interesting and just stops mid-sentence and stares into space. The choices in scenes and how they were put together are dumbfounding and just add to the idea that the writer had no idea where this story was going. Jumping from one idea to another and adding elements that make you wonder what they're really trying to accomplish- which it looks like they don't even know. I couldn't even finish it, it was so bad, but watched it on fast forward to see if there was anything worth continuing, and even that was a waste of time. Don't bother wasting your time, just unwatchable.

It's not a movie you must watch but if you do you'll be slightly entertained.

[drgbbypvx · 2/10 · 5 February 2024]

This film escapes the trappings of most teen horror films. Even so, this does not make the film more likable. A refreshing aspect of the film shows 4 high school kids that have been life long friends without a focus on social media idiocy. It's almost a nod to the days where you spent time with people rather than sit with people while on your phone. From here it jumps into the horror that will be bestowed upon the bunch. Ultimately there is only one friendship that matters. Rather than look at the film and dissect every single syllable uttered on screen I will close by stating that this is exactly what it is billed to be, a horror movie about testing friendship. It's not a movie you must watch but if you do you'll be slightly entertained.

The Friendship Game offers a distinctive take on the horror genre but falls short of making a lasting impact

[kevin_robbins · 4/10 · 12 January 2024]

I recently viewed the Canadian film 🇨🇦 The Friendship Game (2022) on Shudder. The plot revolves around a group of friends who stumble upon "The Friendship Game" at a yard sale, a game that could either strengthen their bonds or tear them apart. As they gear up for college, it seems like a low-risk venture, but initiating the game proves they've bitten off more than they can chew.

Directed by Scooter Corkle (Hollow in the Land), the movie stars Peyton List (27 Dresses), Brendan Meyer (The Guest), Kelcey Mawema (Totally Killer), Annette Reilly (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), and Jennifer Copping (Devil in Ohio).

While the film boasts a unique concept with the potential to rival Saw or The Escape Room; unfortunately, the horror content falls short, lacking the intensity it needed to achieve. The acting is commendable, and the interactions feel fairly authentic, though a few interactions missed the mark. The well-written dialogue contributes to the movie's strengths, and the horror scenes, though a bit hit-and-miss, include well-executed stab scenes. However, there are some static scenes that lack the intended intensity, and the twist falls short, ending on a cheesy note.

In conclusion, The Friendship Game offers a distinctive take on the horror genre but falls short of making a lasting impact. To stand out, it needed to push the horror elements further. I would give it a 4/10 and suggest skipping it.

Sort of stale and too monotonous...

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 22 January 2023]

As I stumbled upon this 2022 sci-fi horror movie "The Friendship Game" in 2023, I opted to watch it because it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, and also because it had Peyton List on the cast list.

I had not actually heard about this movie prior to watching it, so I didn't know what I was in for. So writer Damien Ober and director Scooter Corkle had every chance to impress and bedazzle me.

And they both failed to do so. Sure, "The Friendship Game" was sort of watchable I suppose, but it wasn't really a movie that appealed much to me. The storyline was just not really all that interesting, and as the narrative proceded at a rather slow and dull pace, it was getting more and more difficult to maintain interest in the storyline.

The acting performances in "The Friendship Game" were fair enough, though I wasn't really impressed with it. And as for Peyton List, well then she was much better in "Cobra Kai" than she was here in "The Friendship Game".

For a horror movie then "The Friendship Game" just didn't cut it for me. Having grown up watching horror movies for about 40 plus some years, then this movie just didn't really had the contents that mattered. I am sure that newcomers to the horror genre might get a kick out of this movie.

My rating of "The Friendship Game" lands on a four out of ten stars.