Cards of Death

Sad souls play a deadly game in this 1986 shot-on-video rarity which was briefly released in Japan, then faded into obscurity before receiving a retro-VHS-release in 2013. When police discover a criminal contest where players kill each other to win, they must infiltrate a dangerous domain populated by sickos who slice off noses with cheese graters and strangle people with barbed wire. Seriously, this one’s like, weird to the max, man, with a Casio soundtrack and a surprisingly gritty sensibility courtesy of actor-turned-one-time-director W.G. MacMillan (THE CRAZIES).