The OctoGames (2022)

We live in a world where the equipment to make a passable movie is easily available. It’s not hard to get enough money for a decent camera, a couple lights, and a microphone or two. I’ve been able to make short films with that much before. Anyone can get their hands on equipment if they want to bring one of their ideas to the screen for others to see.

The problem comes when these same creators try to come up with their ideas. Some people aren’t as creative as others. Look back through the Sunday “Bad” Movies history and you’ll see numerous movies that were mockbusters, rip-offs, and retellings of the same story. Metal Man was a riff on Iron Man. Chop Kick Panda was a mockbuster of Kung Fu Panda. Showdown was a retelling of the story made famous by The Karate Kid.

I’m always of the stance that originality comes from how a story is told, rather than the story itself. I’ve mentioned that in almost every recent post. There are times, however, when so many movies go in on one subject at the same time and don’t do enough new with it that I get kind of annoyed. The slashers based on public domain characters are getting a little out of hand. As are the Squid Game riffs, one of which I’m going to be going over.

Here's the issue. I wouldn’t have such a problem with the Squid Game riffs if they were taking the story concept and running with it. A bunch of people are put in a situation where if they lose, they die. One person survives and wins. That concept has been around in different forms for years. Battle Royale, The Hunger Games, Squid Game, Death Tube, and The Long Walk all used that basic story concept in different ways. The OctoGames, the Squid Game riff this post is about, stuck way too close to Squid Game. Instead of being a riff on the material, it felt like a cheap recreation.

JaxPro (Brad Belemjian) was a popular YouTuber and streamer looking to retire from the business. His last big series was going to be a competition. Eight up-and-coming influencers would compete in a series of children’s games where the losers would be eliminated in deadly fashion. Once the contestants found out they would be killed if they lost, some of them wanted out. The other greedy ones wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.

Nearly every story beat in The OctoGames felt like it was pulled straight from Squid Game. On the surface, there were the childhood games and people getting killed. That was the very basic premise of both Squid Game and The OctoGames. There was also the name. One involved squid, a sea creature with ten tentacles. The other went with octo, as in octopus, a sea creature with eight tentacles. The very basic stuff was practically the same, with enough changes that it wouldn’t be considered plagiarism.

The characters were also very much the same between Squid Game and The OctoGames. The main character in each was someone who got into the competition for their own benefit, immediately saw people get killed, and tried to band everyone together to stop the games. There was the super selfish person who would do whatever it took to be the last one standing, even if it involved straight up murdering people. There was the woman who flirted with every possible person to try and gain an advantage, and the older guy who played both sides so he could join whoever had more power. These were character types that, sure, weren’t all that original to Squid Game, but were surely lifted directly from the popular Netflix show for this lower budgeted knock-off.

Other than the clear similarities, the lower budgetedness of The OctoGames really showed through how they tried to recapture some of the Squid Game elements on a much lower scale. One of the big sets in Squid Game was the bedroom where the players were housed between games. Three walls were lined with towers of bunk beds that people would have to climb up to. The OctoGames had eight sleeping bags in a garage. Every set within Squid Game was expertly designed with some sort of theme to it. Some sort of large scope to it. The OctoGames had a hide-and-seek game that really only took place in two small rooms of a house. One of the games in The OctoGames was an obstacle course, which could go any number of imaginative ways, even on a lower budget. They opted for a party inflatable, which was laughable. Every game felt like the least amount of effort was put into it.

As much as I’ve spent this post going through everything that made The OctoGames feel like the cheap knock-off it was, there was one thing it added to the story that made it at least the slightest bit interesting. The whole competition was put on by JaxPro, a popular streamer who wanted to upload videos of it to his YouTube channel before retiring from the platform. Everyone who was chosen to compete in his games was an aspiring influencer who joined for the chance of JaxPro promoting them. The OctoGames was a commentary on the great lengths that influencers will go to for fame and fortune. It was interesting enough commentary for a movie that didn’t try on any other level.

That said, the commentary was still derivative of other, more popular and recognized movies. Scre4m had commented on streaming and fame a decade earlier. The way the killer recorded their murders. The motive behind the deaths. It all came back to fame and fortune. Spree, which came out two years before The OctoGames, followed a budding YouTuber who went on a killing spree after snapping from his lack of success. Each of these movies were about the horrible things people would do to become famous. Each of these movies covered that theme before The OctoGames. So, even the one thing that made The OctoGames feel different than the show it was riffing on wasn’t anything that hadn’t been used in other movies before.

The commentary on influencers wasn’t enough to really set The OctoGames apart from Squid Game. It was essentially just a way to pull the characters into the situation. Once they were in, it played out very much the same way as the show it pulled from. Children’s game after children’s game. Death after death. The characters wanting to be influencers fell to the wayside, even for the ones who wanted to keep playing. It became about the prize money, instead. The same prize money that Squid Game held as a carrot in front of the rabbits playing. It was a different motivation to get them invested, with the same end result.

I’ve defended many movies and their originality as being the way the stories were told rather than the story itself. The problem with The OctoGames was that it was so reliant on Squid Game as a story source that it never fully lived on its own. It didn’t do enough to take an unoriginal premise and spin it in an original way. Squid Game managed to take what The Hunger Games, Battle Royale, and The Long Walk had done and give a unique telling of that concept. The OctoGames didn’t.

The availability of filmmaking equipment has led to some interesting projects. There were some kids in the 1980s who remade Indiana Jones shot for shot. There was a remake of Toy Story in live action, where someone used a bunch of actual toys. These were at least interesting in that they were passion projects. They felt like people doing something because of their love of the source. They got a pass on not bringing anything new to the table.

When someone gets access to filmmaking equipment and uses it to rip-off something at a lower cost for a quick buck without that love… That’s where I have a problem. That’s where I think The OctoGames fell, and that’s why I’m so down on it. Was it watchable? Sure. But that doesn’t mean it came from the right place. It didn’t feel original, and there was no love in the reproduction. That made it a bad movie.

I’m going to toss some notes in here and head out:

• I mentioned a few movies I’ve covered in this post. They were Metal Man, Chop Kick Panda, Showdown, and Death Tube.
• There was nobody in The OctoGames who was previously featured in Sunday “Bad” Movies.
• Have you seen The OctoGames? What did you think? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, on Bluesky, or on Threads.
• You can use Threads, Bluesky, or the comments to let me know about movies I should check out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts.
• Let’s take a look at what’s coming up in future posts. The next post will be about a little movie called #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead. I couldn’t help myself. When I saw it had Jojo Siwa, I knew it would be perfect. Then I’ve got Slashlorette Party. Yeah, we’re right into horror now. Anyway, I’ll see you soon for #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead.