Cards of Death

A while back, YouTube’s algorithm recommended to me a video about lost media. This opened up a rabbit hole for me. I’d known of lost media in a sense — the lost episodes of Doctor Who, for instance — but that there was a subculture dedicated to not only identifying it but trying to find it fascinated me. I ended up finding a website called the Lost Media Wiki, a website chronicling lost media of all kinds: music, commercials, video games, news footage, and so much more, and when the media is found, they note that too and where it can be seen. Poking around on there, I found they had an NSFW section, and that intrigued me even more. I wanted to know what could be in there besides the obvious. Cards Of Death is one of those pieces of found media. An 80’s slasher movie shot on video, and reportedly so sleazy, so vile, and so bloody, it wasn’t even released in the US. Sony only released it in Japan, where it languished in obscurity for over 25 years, before a tiny VHS rerelease in the States in the mid 10’s. After that, it fell into obscurity again. But the Lost Media Wiki had a link to where it could be found. So I downloaded it. I had to know. I had to see how a movie could be bad enough to not even get a release. It has to make Faces Of Death and I Spit On Your Grace look like Orson Welles! Yeah, about that. It doesn’t. It’s a backyard, no-budget, shot on a camcorder, acted by the director’s buddies, snoozefest. The plot keeps repeating two sequences: an underground cult that invites people to play a life or death card game, and the police trying to track it down. Watch card game. Watch police be angry about the lack of clues. Watch another card game. Watch police. Occasional sex scene. Occasional murder. Repeat for 90 minutes. It’s dull, it’s boring, it’s never interesting, its never half as offensive as it wants to be, and it’s never even accidentally funny like Birdemic or Overdraawn At The Memory Bank. It’s just one big yawnfest. There is nothing redeeming about this movie whatsoever. The story behind the movie is a lot more interesting than the movie itself.