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For those of you out there looking for an R-rated spin on the “Jumanji” flicks, “Gatlopp” (available on VOD beginning Thursday, June 23) might just be the low-budget scratch for your itch.
Angeleno Paul (Jim Mahoney) is in the process of getting divorced from his wife Alice (Shelley Hennig, “Unfriended”) and selling their home after she left him for sleazy French film producer Andre (John Ales, doing double duty this week between this and “Murder at Yellowstone City”). Paul’s old pal Cliff (Jon Bass) lets him crash at his bachelor pad and invites their friends, driven producer Sam (Emmy Raver-Lampman, busy this year between “Blacklight,” “Dog” and this) and struggling actor Troy (Sarunas J. Jackson of HBO’s “Insecure”), over to help cheer their buddy up.
The get-together fizzles a bit when Sam and Troy (who used to date) begin squabbling. Cliff, in hopes of saving the evening, breaks out Gatlopp (“gauntlet” in Swedish), a drinking/board game he discovered in his newly-acquired secondhand credenza. The other three reluctantly agree to play. Unbeknownst to them, the game is a portal to hell and the quartet will be doomed to play for eternity if they don’t complete it before sunrise. If a player is cheating or dishonest, they’ll be punished accordingly … one player gets shot in the leg with an arrow; another is banished to hell for a spell. These friends will have to work together and reconcile themselves with some uncomfortable secrets in order to escape the game’s clutches.
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