Directors – Eren Celeboglu & Ari Costa, Screenplay – J. Braider, Eren Celeboglu & Ari Costa, Producers – Jake Aust, Angela Russo-Otstot & Kassee Whiting & John Zois, Photography – Ricardo Diaz, Music – Alex Belcher, Visual Effects – IMN Creative (Supervisor – James Cotten), Mas Effects (Supervisor – Mark Stern) & Urban Prairie Post Production (Supervisor – Darren Wall), Special Effects Supervisor – Davin MacRae, Prosthetic Makeup Design – Doug Morrow, Production Design – Diana Magnus. Production Company – Anton/Gozie Agbo.
Cast
Asa Butterfield (Marcus Fletcher), Natalia Dyer (Billie Fletcher), Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (Jonah Fletcher), Laurel Marsden (Sophie Fletcher), Annabeth Gish (Kathy Fletcher), Erik Atahavale (Bob), Kolton Stewart (Pete), Marina Stephenson Kerr (Joanna Good), Summer H. Howell (Demon/Daniel Good)
Plot
Salem, Massachusetts, the present day. Young Jonah Fletcher breaks into an old house with his older brother Marcus where they find a ritual dagger and a diary dating from the 17th Century witch trials. They leave the items behind, but upon returning home, Jonah finds that the dagger and diary have somehow gotten into his bag. Marcus and his sister Billie are ordered by their mother to stay home and babysit Jonah that evening. As they do so, Jonah picks up the dagger. It compels him to insist they all play a game and swear to keep playing until it is done. After picking up the dagger, Marcus becomes possessed by Daniel Good, a boy who was inhabited by a demon in the 17th Century. The possessed Marcus now forces them all to play a series of deadly versions of childhood games in which their lives are forfeit.
All Fun & Games was a debut for the directorial duo of Eren Celeboglu and Ari Costa, who had previously made a couple of short films together. The surprise names on the credits that elevate expectations is that of the Russo Brothers, Anthony and Joe, directors of the films like Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and The Electric State (2025).
Throughout the late 2010s/early 2020s, there has been a spate of films that offer up horror versions of childhood or party games. See the likes of Would You Rather (2012), Truth or Dare (2018), Ready or Not (2019) or Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). All Fun & Games can be also considered as falling into this mini-genre.
Alas, for all the promise that someone clearly saw they had, Celeboglu and Costa promptly trip over their feet as directors. The film they serve up is one that feels little more than a progression of jumpshocks and loud amplified slams on the soundtrack. The constant repetition of such effects soon becomes tedious. When it comes to the image of the ghosts of three Puritan women surrounding the characters pointing and shrieking “Read the book, read the book” in unison or the appearance of a cackling mother, you realise that this is a pretty lame and badly directed film.
Asa Butterfield and Natalia Dyer forced to play deadly party games
There is mild amusement to seeing a possessed Asa Butterfield – I kind of wished Natalia Dyer’s bland character would have undergone a similar transformation when she invites the spirit into her near the end, but this never happens. There is a scanty justification for all of this concerning a cursed knife back from the days of witches in Salem. (Which we learn were real witches instead of innocents persecuted by a superstitious community. That said, for all its setting of Salem, All Fun & Games was actually shot in Manitoba, Canada).
You wonder if All Fun & Games is not a film that sat around for some time before being released. Both Asa Butterfield and Natalia Dyer, aged respectively 26 and 28, came to fame in teenage roles and have both gone on to play adult parts. Whereas this casts them back as teenagers again (where it feels like Dyer in particular is playing at least ten years younger than her actual age). It feels either a case of the film being made when they were more identified with teenage parts having sat on the shelf or else backwards casting where they are asked to go back to younger parts. Both are perfectly okay in their roles, although this is not going to go down as a classic work on either’s cv.
