The Horror, the Horror!
Why isn’t there a quality, poker-themed horror movie? The title, "Poker Night: Dead Man's Hand," is a bit campy, but so are many horror movies. Imagine eight college grads uniting on a remote island for a night of boozing and strip poker. The plot writes itself. One by one, the clothing layers are removed and one by one, the players get lured from the table and slaughtered in a most grizzly fashion.
At the end, there is only one person left, and she (it has to be a she) is forced to play our killer in a poker game to the death. All you can see is the killer’s eyes behind a Yoda mask (or any other mask that terrifies you), as he deals the cards on the blood-soaked table. The girl shivers, forced to face her fears while playing the most important game of her life. The stage is set for a high-stakes and bloody battle of the wits in a truly all-in poker showdown. The climax will be a violent, bone-chilling spectacle, guaranteed to leave the audience dead broke—emotionally that is. Cut to black.
One Degree of Separation: Poker Playing Actors and Their Horror Movies
Many movie stars play poker for fun when they are not on the set. And many of them have starred in horror movies. Maybe someday one of these poker-playing actors will take their winnings and parlay it into a killer poker film:
Mekhi Phifer won The Celebrity Poker Showdown (Fourth Tournament) in 2004. You can watch the impressive win on YouTube. He bested Matthew Perry, Dennis Rodman, Kevin Nealon, and Neil Patrick Harris. Mekhi was a victim of zombies in 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead” and the killer in “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.”
James Woods is known for playing roles in classics like “Casino” and “The Gambler.” He is also known for playing poker, whether in casinos, charitable events, and especially the online variety. He is number six on SWNS’s top ten celebrity poker players. His horror film connections are “Vampires” and “Cat’s Eye.”
According to this FOX4KC online news report, Paul Rudd has been hosting The Big Slick Poker Tournament for the last few years. The star-studded tourney raises money for Children’s Mercy Hospital and according to Paul, the charitable event “is really fun.” He starred in, “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers” and “The Object of My Affection” (okay, that one is not a horror movie, but it was horrifying to watch for sure).
According to this article on Betfair news article, Shannon Elizabeth is a regular in Las Vegas and finished third in the $25,000 buy-in NBC National Heads-Up Championship. She was in the films “Thirteen Ghosts” and “Night of the Demons.”
You probably know Ron Livingston as the star of “Office Space,” but he is also known in the poker world as an active participant. Check out his interview at the WPT Invitational. Ron was in the movie “Campfire Tales” along with "Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King.”
Homicidal Maniacs Always Welcome
Our horror imaginations may occasionally run wild as we continue to dream the dreams. There is no shame in the practice—no marker to pay. “Poker Night: Dead Man’s Hand” will probably never make it to the big screen (or straight to DVD for that matter), but for now, we’ll keep taking our horror any way we can get it.
