Description
Four individuals live in a secluded manor house in the English countryside, where they engage in an elaborate role-playing fantasy called The Game. In The Game, each individual assumes the role of a member in a "happy" family, completely subsuming his or her individual personality to the point that each individual is known only by the identity he or she is playing: Mumsy (the mother, Ursula Howells), Nanny (the nanny, Pat Heywood), Sonny (the son, played by Howard Trevor), and Girly (the daughter, Vanessa Howard). The Game is built around a set of strictly enforced yet ill-defined rules, the principal one of which is "Rule No. 1: Play the Game."
As a part of The Game, the teenaged Sonny and Girly regularly venture to more populated areas, where the pair use Girly to lure men back to the manor house. Once there, the men are dressed like schoolboys and forcibly indoctrinated into The Game, assuming the roles of "New Friends." Those who refuse are "sent to the Angels"—a euphemism for being ritualistically murdered in scenarios built around playground games, which Sonny routinely records on a 16mm movie camera so that the family can later enjoy the resultant snuff film.
One night, Girly and Sonny stake out a swinging London party, where they encounter a male prostitute (Michael Bryant) and his latest client (Imogen Hassall). An instant attraction develops between Girly and the man, who convinces his client to accompany the siblings for a night of carousing. Girly and Sonny take the couple to a playground, where they murder the woman by throwing her from a large slide. The next morning, Sonny and Girly convince the hungover man that he murdered the woman after a night of heavy drinking, and convince him to return to the manor with them. The prostitute—rechristened "New Friend"—is outfitted in schoolboy clothes and subjected to an indeterminate period of torment "playing the game," during which he is repeatedly presented with his client's body as a reminder that the family has incriminating information about him.
After Mumsy makes sexual overtures to New Friend one evening, he gets the idea to turn the family against itself. New Friend's plot succeeds, as he creates sexual jealousy between the women after first sleeping with Mumsy and then Girly. Sonny, left out of the sexual politics, petitions to have New Friend "sent to the angels;" in a moment of panic, Girly bludgeons him to death with an antique mirror. Chastising Girly for creating a mess, Mumsy dismisses Sonny as "naughty" and orders a visibly shaken New Friend to bury Sonny beneath a drained fountain on the manor grounds, which is already populated by makeshift gravestones bearing the numerical identities assigned to dispatched "friends."
Nanny, jealous that she is the only female member of the household left out of New Friend's attentions, attempts to murder Mumsy with acid-tipped needles, but the attempt fails when it is inadvertently interrupted by New Friend. Girly, realising that Nanny has set her sights on New Friend, hacks Nanny to death with an axe and cooks her head for use in baked goods.
Rather than turn on one another, Mumsy and Girly declare a truce, deciding to "share" New Friend by alternating which days of the week each woman will be permitted to have sex with him. The two women agree, though ponder what will happen should either of them ever become bored with New Friend, with Girly declaring it as an inevitability. Overhearing the women's conversation, New Friend retrieves—and hides—Nanny's acid tipped needles before settling into Mumsy's room, smiling.
