Poker Night is a new, long-in-the-works horror film from director/screenwriter Greg Francis. After spending many years building his resume in Hollywood working on TV films, series, and documentaries, this serves as his proper first foray into feature film. And it’s a solid first leap, as he recruited a strong cast of notable actors, including well-knowns Ron Perlman and Giancarlo Esposito. You may recognize them from Hellboy and Breaking Bad, respectively. Here, however, they’re not taking center stage—that’s up to Beau Mirchoff. For those unfamiliar with his work, his IMDB profile indicates that he had recurring roles in Desperate Housewives and Heartland.
Mirchoff’s turn is Poker Night is quite different, though, as he portrays young detective Jeter. He recently joined the Warsaw, Ind. police force, where he learns all about the town, its past, and much more by taking part in a regular poker game with the veteran officers. And just as he’s getting comfortable, Jeter and his girlfriend, Amy, are kidnapped and thrown into a far deadlier game with a masked maniac pulling all the strings. It’s up to Jeter to use the tactics and knowledge gained from listening to stories at the poker nights to escape. It’s not exactly clear how much Perlman and Esposito, playing cops named Calabrese and Bernard, will factor into the chilling kidnapping portion of the film. That being said, the trailer seems to point at some pretty creepy scenes with Esposito, at least.
One particularly interesting note about Poker Night is how its own arc—that of the film’s creation, not the movie’s script—has followed the popularity timeline of poker’s popularity. For instance, Joblo reported in this article that the film has been in the works since 2005 and that it was supposed to originally star Samuel L. Jackson and Hayden Christensen. For whatever reason, they dropped out and were replaced by Mirchoff and Perlman, which isn’t exactly the worst trade given Christensen’s weak acting chops. That aside, the movie’s announcement in ’05 coincided with the rise of poker, particularly online. And just as poker’s popularity fell into a bit of a rut in the ensuing years, so did Poker Night’s progress.
Everything seemed to change in the past year or so, for both the film and the game. Poker Night’s final artwork and firm release date have finally been revealed—you can view the art here—while online poker has been making strides in finding homes in places where it’s now legal to play, including New Jersey in the United States. But if you have somehow missed out on the poker wave—either one, really—there’s still time to catch up. Whether or not you want to actually play is up to you, but it’d be wise to at least familiarise yourself with the rules before seeing the film. Betfair have a really useful guide on playing poker online, and it details everything you would need to know about the game prior to the movie’s release. In doing so, you’ll get a better feel for the intensity that can surround a solid game of poker, as well as the community-oriented atmosphere.
If Poker Night’s caught your attention after reading this article, here are its release date details: It hits theaters on December 19th, and you can catch it on iTunes and Video On Demand before that on December 5th.
