Dead Man's Hand

Dead Man’s Hand (2007): Those familiar with some of the history of the old west will be familiar with the poker term ‘dead man’s hand’ which is aces and eights and was supposedly the hand Wild Bill Hickock held when he was shot in the back. I’ll still take that hand any day by the way, in spite of the historical risk. However, any connection to that famous hand and this movie is tenuous at best. Right at the start you realize this is a real low budget outing when in the first scene you see the lead ingénue sleeping on a motel bed wearing headphones. The next shot shows her boyfriend bringing her a cup of coffee and goll durn, no headphones. Perhaps these ghostly headphones portend the presence of spirits soon to be encountered. I say not likely. Methinks it be a gross continuity error. In addition, the lead ingénue, though pretty, swallows her dialogue and can hardly be understood unless in a real screaming fit. Fortunately, she does get to exercise her lungs later in the flick.
This is really a teen in a box movie as 3 couples head to an old casino that one of the semi-coherent males inherited. It seems like everyone in these movies is inheriting some kind of building and they always seem to be haunted or cursed or at least radioactive or perhaps inhabited by a hungry mutant or maybe a mad scientist or two. In this case the haunted casino has a mix of crooks and former employees who were killed in the 80’s by the casino owner and they want revenge from the inheritor. Fortunately for him, most of the dead that pile up are his friends and he and his earphone-less lassie live to star in more bad movies. Only performances by B movie veterans Sid Haig and Michael Berryman lift this flick slightly out of the pure stinker class. The movie is not rated but would probably scare up an R for: marked victims, marked cards, multiple removed arms, fake sex, lame fake sex, head bleeding, bleeding toilet, bad cards, bad bets, bad plot, bad continuity and for the poor real estate agent who meets a really violent end in the ladies room at the start of the movie.