One of my all time favorites.

Expected more

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I had heard that "The Name of the Game Is Kill!" had a big twist at its end when I first learned about the movie, so I made an extra effort not to learn any more about the movie before watching it so that the big twist would not be spoiled for me. Just a few minutes ago, I finished watching the movie. Was the so-called big twist worth the wait? Eh, not really. While I admit that I was not expecting it, at the same time it was a twist that has been done in many other movies before and since. Maybe in 1968 the twist was more fresh, but today it doesn't seem all that special. So that leaves the rest of the movie to make up for things. I will admit the low budget and crude look give the movie a kind of raw spirit at times, making the story more convincing than had it been done with a lot of polish. And there are a few mildly creepy moments here and there. But for the most part, the story plays out in a humdrum fashion. It doesn't help that there are a few plot details that are not made clear by the freeze-frame end, leaving me mystified with what exactly happened in the tragic (I think) past of the characters. I've seen many thrillers that are a lot worse, I admit, but all the same there isn't enough here to make this a real grabber.

Decent psycho thriller doesn't offer much that fans of this kind of thing haven't seen before, but it manages to be enough of a curiosity to deserve rescuing from obscurity.'Hawaii Five-O' star Jack Lord is front and centre as Symcha Lipa, an amiable Hungarian refugee turned hitchhiker. He's given a lift by young Mickey Terry (lovely Susan Strasberg), and he agrees to stay with her and her family for a while. He and Mickey seem to be falling in love, but first they must deal with this disturbed family of hers: two sisters, Diz (Collin Wilcox Paxton) and Nan (Tisha Sterling), and their matriarch (T.C. Jones).Very moodily photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond, on an obviously very low budget, "The Name of the Game is Kill!" isn't without its pleasures, mainly the go-for-broke performances of the attractive female cast. Lord is reasonably convincing as a foreigner and makes his character likable enough that you wish that he would have just moved on. Sexy young Sterling has a moderately fun little dance number to "Shadows" by The Electric Prunes. (It's worth nothing the fact that there are two second generation talents here, with Strasberg being the daughter of Lee Strasberg and Sterling the daughter of Ann Sothern.) Led by Swedish director Gunnar Hellstrom, who mostly worked in TV ('Gunsmoke', 'Dallas'), the filmmakers do capture an appropriate sense of isolation. Rounding out this minimal group of actors is Mort Mills, the highway patrolman of "Psycho", as a police chief.Unfortunately, Gary Crutchers' screenplay is too predictable to completely work. The supposed "big twist" in this tale is too obvious right from the start.Six out of 10.

This movie was interesting at best for this time era. It was a true thriller and most appealing to audiences around the world. I especially liked the differences between the three sisters, in which they all had various personalities and desires for this Hungarian drifter that happened to stop at the gas station in need of help. Jack Lord played a most interesting role as did the other members of the cast and I had found the sisters to be very desirable to Jack Lord and he did not see what was ahead of him before they tried to kill him by running him over the bridge. Each sister played a very different role in what they had in store for this Hungarian man and in the end it was a cliff hanger. Very much enjoyed for a film produced in the late 60's. A remake of this film would be very enlightening. Jeanelle Todd

Jack Lord provides a commendable performance here as a Hungarian drifter roaming the desolate American southwest. Offered lodging by three odd sisters and their equally odd mother(who are operating a last-chance gas station in a nearly abandoned town), all initially seems well enough...but little by little, bizarre secrets are revealed, and a mystery unfolds which puts our hero in mortal danger. Deceit and seduction play him like a fiddle from hell, and all parties are suspect.Effectively eerie in a strange, evanescent way, THE NAME OF THE GAME IS KILL draws great benefit from a creditable music score and some surprisingly creative location filming by pre-famed Vilmos Zsigmond.A pretty elusive second-string flick which has all but disappeared since its initial theatrical run, grey-market copies circulating online tend to be terribly washed-out. Sadly, that will just have to suffice ad interim until a much-anticipated legit release is brought forward. Give it a whirl, especially if you enjoy delirious 60s relics the likes of SPIDER BABY, LADY IN A CAGE, WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR, and ANGEL, ANGEL, DOWN WE GO.6.5/10