The Lizzie Borden Game is a film from 2025. It’s somehow based on, you guessed it, the murder case against Lizzie Borden and the circumstances of her father and stepmother’s deaths. In the film itself some of the people claim to not know who Lizzie Borden was, but I find that far fetched. I mean, I’m not from Fall River or Massachusetts but I know a bit about the legendary case. And I’m all the way over in Sweden and still know the classic verse by heart
Lizzie Borden Took an Axe
And Gave her mother forty wacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father fortyone
Of course, if we were to talk about accuracy, it’s not even remotely close to what really happened. The Stepmother – Abby was stabbed or “wacked” 18 to 19 times depending on the source and the father had 8- to 11 wounds, again depending on the source. But before I go into a too dry statement about it, I might add that I might not be the typical Joe regarding this. I wrote a song about it25 years ago and had to do some research. But none of that is really important anyway. The important thing is the legend.
It was the common opinion back at the time that she was guilty of the gruesome double murder, and I think is the common consensus. But the fact is that she was acquitted of the crime regardless if she did it or not. There was simply no evidence. They even comment about this in the film. They say something in the line of that everyone knew she was guilty because he was, just like OJ Simpson. You can read what you like into that but they’re two prolific trials the last couple of hundred years where everyone “knew” the guilt, but both of them got acquitted.
But maybe we should get into the plot after this short introduction, hehe. We start off seeing a couple of kids play the game, the Lizzie Borden game. That is something that I’m unfamiliar with though. I have no idea if that’s a game kids scare each other with in the USA. You’re supposedly meant to have some lit candles and a mirror and basically recite the classic verse into the mirror and Lizzie Borden should appear. Kind or like Bloody Mary och Candyman.
Candyman had his hook and Lizzie Borden of course carries an axe. Although an axe was probably not used in the legendary crime, nevermind that. It’s a great visual and who wouldn’t be terrified if a crazy woman showed up wielding an axe? I would need a new pair of shorts for sure.
Once the teaser is over we’re transferred to the main story. There are a few people meeting up at this remote old house. Their backgrounds are very different. Some of them are cousins, there is the other couple from Britain of course and there’s a husband to one of them there as well. What do you think will happen? Correct, the game comes up and since the brits never heard about it, they must show how the game is played, and they do. Need I go on? Of course the legend comes to life.
It’s kind of a ghostly slasher of sorts. Since Lizzie comes from another time, or another dimension or something, you can just go full slasher even if the result is basically the same. The acting is pretty good overall. I don’t have anything to complain about. You can tell that there’s a low budget from some of the cinematography solutions though. And the sound, mainly from the dialog. It’s not really bad, it’s quite good, but there’s this layer of reverb or something which makes it kind of hard to hear at times. Otherwise it’s top notch. The stereo sound really works very well.
We get to know a little something about the characters a bit at a time. And we also get to know glimpses of Lizze Borden little by little. I think they developed that backstory well and I especially like that they tried to weave in some kind of homosexual motifs there.
All in all I really like this take on the legend and to put it into a childish game is a very good move. It makes it work at the same time as Lizzie Borden’s mysterious name is exploited.
