Director/Screenplay/Photography – Aaron Mirtes, Story – Brad Belemjian, Galen Christy & Aaron Mirtes, Producers – Madison Johnson & Aaron Mirtes, Rules Animation – Mohammed Sedawei, Makeup Effects – Audrey Willis & Dylan A. Young. Production Company – Octane Multimedia/Exit 10 Films.
Cast
Lacy Hartselle (Carrie Miller), Cael Adcock (Steven ‘Squish’ Randal), Luv Patel (Arjun ‘AJ’ Singh), Henry Haggard (Walter Brentwood), Brad Belemjian (Jaxpro), Alice Raver (Ruth Martin), Allison Shrum (Maxine Harlowe), Patrick Sharn (The Eliminator), Fallon Gyurko (Luna Laughlin), Claire Palmer (Jess Hardbody), Sally Harvey Anderson (Sunny ‘Ms. Sunshine’ McConnell)
Plot
Assorted social media influencers, wannabes and those with online presences are selected to participate in The OctoGames. Jaxpro, an influencer who has 150 million followers, announces that he is planning to retire and will gift his audience to the successful contestant. The contestants are required to play a series of popular children’s games such as Simon Says, Hopscotch and Musical Chairs. However, these have been designed with deadly consequences where the losing competitors are eliminated
The OctoGames was the seventh feature film for Aaron Mirtes. Mirtes first appeared with Clowntergeist (2017) and then in quick succession made Curse of the Nun (2018), American Hunt (2019), The Alpha Test (2020), Ouija Craft (2020), Painted in Blood (2022) and the subsequent The Bigfoot Trap (2023) and Escape Pod (2023), as well as producing Death Ranch (2020).
The South Korean-made tv series The Squid Games (2021- ) was a huge unexpected international hit when it appeared on Netflix. The series was set around a group of people who were inducted into a secretive series of elimination rounds based on children’s games, all of which had been given a lethal spin where the losing contestants were killed.
The OctoGames is essentially the Mockbuster version of The Squid Games. If The Asylum ever did mockbusters of tv series this is surely what they would produce, although they would no doubt have given the film more of a budget than this. In essence, Aaron Mirtes has unimaginatively taken the basics of The Squid Games and played them out using games more familiar to English-speaking audiences – Musical Chairs, Hopscotch, Hangman, Simon Says, Capture the Flag etc.
Social media influencer Jaxpro (Brad Belemjian) (c) flanked by two of the handlers
There is really no more to The OctoGames than copying the basics of The Squid Games, right down to the murderous versions of games and ruthless backstabbing between contestants. There are even the same handlers wearing blank masks and boiler suits. Even the film’s title is conducted with a lack of imagination, simply switching one species of cephalopod for another.
This is very much a cheap version of The Squid Games that appears to have been shot inside somebody’s home – there is no production designer credit, for instance, meaning that all the sets have been appropriated rather than built. The performances of the principals is generally competent, nothing to write home about. Aaron Mirtes’s direction consists of no more than setting a scene – there is no real effort being made to create suspense with anything that happens, probably due a quick shooting schedule.
