When Your Goof-Ass College Thriller is Actually Profound

TAG: The Assassination Game has Nick Castle's usual cheeky charm, but the charismatic leads and a sweaty, creepy performance by Bruce Abbott gives us a hidden classic about how we get lost in the Magic Circle of gameplay. #assassin #amongus #lindahamilton #nickcastle

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Primary Sources
TAG: The Assassination Game. Directed by Nick Castle. Produced by Arnie Fishman and Peter R. Simpson. Embassy Pictures, 1982.

TAG: The Assassination Game (Special Edition Blu-ray). Directed by Nick Castle. 1982; Columbus, OH: Synapse Films, 2026.

Secondary Sources: Film Theory & Criticism
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.

Carroll, Noël. The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1977.

Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume I. Translated by Ben Fowkes. New York: Penguin Classics, 1990.

Newman, Michael Z. The Media Studies Toolkit. New York: Routledge, 2022.

Williams, Linda. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible". Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Secondary Sources: Play & Sociological Theory
Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971.

Fuchs, Christian. Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet. London: University of Westminster Press, 2016.

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.

Media & Reference Materials
AFI Catalog. "TAG (1982)." American Film Institute. Accessed January 31, 2026..

Maslin, Janet. "Movie Review: Tag The Assassination Game." The New York Times, April 24, 1982.

Safan, Craig. Tag: The Assassination Game - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. BSX Records/Apple Music. Accessed January 31, 2026.

Wikipedia contributors. "Tag: The Assassination Game." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed January 31, 2026.

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