I’m not really someone that likes to drink. I may have the odd drink occasionally, but every kind of alcohol I’ve tried has tasted putrid to me. I can’t fathom why people would willingly drink something that tastes like rat piss, but that’s neither here nor there. However, when the mood strikes me, I’m usually the first person to try and organize a drinking game to movies. I don’t know why I get so much fun out of watching or playing drinking games, but I think there’s a sense of bonding when you play it with the right group of people with the right rules. So in honor of International Let’s Get Drunk Day, also known as St. Patrick’s Day, Flixist has prepared for you a fun collection of our favorite drinking games. We’re not responsible for what happens to you if you play them, but we can only assume that you won’t remember whatever you did.
Out of all of the drinking games I’ve played and organized, there were some standout ones that I had to cut. I could have gone with the classic Lord of the Rings drinking game, where there are numerous rules and modifiers you can place to make the game more interesting like drinking every time Frodo makes a jizz face (which is all the time). I could have done the Kingsman drinking game, where you drink for every codename uttered and have to waterfall continuously while “Freebird” is playing. But if you want pure, unadulterated hilarity, you need to try the Oogieloves and the Big Balloon Adventure Drinking Game, or as I like to call it, Obey the Oogieloves.
For those of you that have never heard of the Oogieloves, consider yourself lucky. Imagine if the Teletubbies were somehow even lamer and went on an adventure to get balloons for their comatose pillow’s birthday with the helpful advice from a talking window, a vacuum cleaner named J. Edgar (GET IT???), and so many notable celebrities that you’ll wonder what contracts forced them to appear here. Christopher Lloyd is a mute mariachi in a flying sombrero that is powered by dancing. So obviously in the face of such madness, one must be driven to drink.
The rules of this drinking game are simple but insidious. You have to take a shot whenever turtles walk across on screen. That seems all well and good, but the turtles only appear when it’s time for the audience to participate in the movie. Yes, you heard me right. This movie encourages audience participation. Which leads us to the second rule; OBEY. For every second that you decided not to participate and do what the movie tells you, you need to drink. Maybe you don’t walk to sing along with the Oogieloves. Too bad, if you don’t you must drink. Tired of telling Goofy Toofy to pick up his pants? Well I hope you don’t mind picking yourself off the floor, cause that’s where you’ll be with how much you’ll have to drink. It’s a game that slowly becomes more and more chaotic as the night goes and people get more and more wasted. By the end, everyone is a bumbling mess attempting the Oogielove dance. One friend refused to do anything the movie said and passed out at the halfway mark.
Oh, there’s one more rule. You need to finish your drink whenever Cary Elwes stares into your soul and asks if you like bubbles. You’ll know it when it happens. And you’ll die a little inside. But you’ll love it.
Game: Tequila Time
Film: Hard-Boiled)
In Stranglehold, the game based on Hard-Boiled (little throw-back review!), the player enters “Tequila Time” when they go into slow-mo.
Come on!
Yes, Hard-Boiled is my proposed drinking game film. In it, we follow both brash Hong Kong detective “Tequila” Yuen (the always-dashing Chow Yun-fat) and undercover cop Alan (no cool nickname; played by the excellent Tony Leung) as they disassemble a gun-running bad guy crime ring. Oh how they disassemble it, and how this game will likely disassemble you.
What’re we drinkin’, guys and gals? Tequila Slammers of course.
I mean, you don’t have to do that each time… It’s a mess.
Where was I? Yeah, take a shot every time someone dives and fires a gun. What’s that, like one climactic scene—NO, you fool! You know not the ways of The Woo! The John Woo Dive is a trademark of the Chinese action master, canonized here in his 1992 bullet ballet. The ultimate goal of this little exercise it to end up diving, booze in hand, each time Tequila opens up on some fools while sailing, gracefully, through the haze of gunsmoke and insane, ridiculous explosions that just come from freakin’ nowhere. – Sam van der Meer
Game: The Racist, Homophobic, Foul-Mouthed Rat
Film: The Departed
That is the beautiful name I came up with for one of the greatest gifts that came to me during college. The Departed is such a great film in so many ways. The acting, the directing, the music, the twists, the turns, it is all just so good. I remember being floored the first time I saw this in a theater, and the moment I bought the DVD the day it came out.
I watched it and was in pure euphoria, but I was left with one thought, how can I possibly gain more joy watching this film? I know! I should make a drinking game out of it! I mean what better way to celebrate a world of such despair, deceit, and death then to just drink!
So I created The Racist, Homophobic, Foul-Mouthed Rat. The rules are simple, anytime someone says something racist you drink. Any time someone says something homophobic in the most toxic masculine way possible, you take a drink. Any time someone says a pursing curse word, you drink, and anytime someone says the word rat you drink. And the best part, any time Jack Nicholson pretends to be a rat you take a full shot.
And guess what? It somehow makes this amazing film even greater! Cheers! – Nathan McVay
Game: Waterloo
Film: Abel Gance’s Napoléon
Abel Gance is one of cinema’s most important directors. A revolutionary in both technical and artistic aspects of film, the spared no cost in realizing his ambitious projects. Probably the most ambitious of them all is Napoléon. The film is an important landmark in cinematic history for a variety of reasons. It used radical techniques like quick cuts, layering of images, and POV shots. It used a three-camera technique to make the move widescreen at parts, literally filming shots with three cameras and then playing the film back next to each other. It was going to be the first part of a six-part collection. Its budget was massive.
It is also a five-and-half hour-long silent film.
Yea, you read that right. Five and a half hours of silence. Even if you watch it with a musical score it’s a challenge. There’s only so far “importance to cinematic history” can get you, and trust me it’s a long shot from five-and-half hours.
So this is less of a drinking game and more of a drinking challenge. You drink to make it through the film. Here’s what you’ll need: two 40s and some hard liquor. You’re gonna start with those 40s. The first 40 is going to warm you up nicely. You’ll get a good buzz going and it will actually make the movie fun to watch for a bit. You’ll think its pretty swell how they lined up those tri-camera shots and all. This first 40 is going to make the film fun.
But the effects won’t last and you’re going to need to crack open the second 40. Let’s say you’re a little over an hour in by now. Maybe more. Savor this 40. If you drink too fast you’re going to puke. It’s a lot of malt liquor to get through and you need to pace yourself. You want to get good and drunk off this sucker, but slowly. There’s going to be some boredom here, but you can do it and once you’re pretty plastered from downing two 40s in two or so hours you’re going to be able to ride the drunk wave into hour three and maybe to hour four.
But it won’t get you to the end. No, this is when the hard stuff comes out. At some point in the film, wars start being fought and things start getting silently epic. Just start swigging from the bottle here. Make a game out of it if you want. Maybe every time it looks like someone mouths the word “fuck” you tag a sip. Whatever you gotta do, just keep drinking. Soon time will mean nothing. The flickering images on the screen barely coherent to your addled brain as you take another sip. What is film anyway? Light, chemicals… life? Maybe you’re at the point where you think you start hearing the actors speaking. If so it’s a good time to stop because we don’t want to puke and you’ve probably been drinking for five hours straight.
Just another 30 minutes and you’ve made it. As you slump in your chair in a drunken stupor know that once the film ends you too will be a Waterloo champion, and you can talk all arrogantly about how you’ve watched Abel Gance’s historically important, groundbreaking epic Napoléon. – Matthew Razak
Game: Oh Hi Alcohol
Film: The Room
If you’ve seen The Room then you know what a strange and fun trip it is. You couldn’t plan a trainwreck like this. The dialogue, the acting, the “sets”, and SPOONS! This is the opposite of lightning in a bottle, but it still works as some great entertainment. The only thing that may be more entertaining than the actual movie is the story of what it was like making it. The Room is understood only by those who have experienced it and if you have experienced it you know that alcohol can only improve your time with this gem.
Johnny is a very important banker, Mark is his best friend, and Lisa loves Mark and doesn’t love Johnny anymore. I’m not lying when I say I may have summed up about forty percent of the movie’s dialogue right there. When the characters talk, you listen. You then realize that what they said either did not make any sense, was completely on the nose, or changed topics so quickly that you feel like you got whiplash. It’s amazing. This has become a sort of Rocky Horror Picture Show for the digital age. The midnight screenings of people quoting out the dialogue and throwing spoons anytime one appears in the pictures of the apartment.
If you are brave and by brave I mean insane then you can play this drinking game with Scotchka. What is Scotchka you ask? It is the combination of Scotch and Vodka that the characters drink for one scene in the movie. The hangover isn’t worth it, trust me. I recommend you stick to beer for this one since you’ll likely be drinking often. Every time Johnny says hi to someone you must drink and quote back his “Oh Hi” to him. That will get you most of the way there. Drinking every time Denny is being creepy is necessary because…you know he’s Denny and he’ll creep you out. Take a shot for the flower shop scene alone. You should probably drink every time you get a look at sunny San Francisco through stock video footage. There is one last rule, but this one is optional. You must drink every time Johnny laughs.
I feel like you should have to sign a waiver before that last one. – John Morey
Game: Water Floats But Also Capsizes Boats
Film: Drunken Master II (醉拳二; Jui Kuen II)
If there was ever a movie that exemplified the glory and danger of wanton drunkenness, it is Drunken Master II; the American cut of the film is known as The Legend of Drunken Master. The 1978 original Drunken Master was Jackie Chan’s first big success, following on the heels of his breakthrough hit Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow.
Drunken Master II features some of Chan’s best fights, including a great brawl against a gang of hatchet-wielding goons and a remarkably fast-paced final fight against Ken Lo. The film was also a historic team-up with acclaimed Shaw Brothers filmmaker Lau Kar-Leung; picture the titans of two genre-defining movie studios (Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest) together in a single film. Lau was the original director of Drunken Master II, but Chan, who had way more clout in the industry at that time, eventually took over the production due to creative differences.
So if you want to drink and enjoy some mad wonderful fights, get your rice wine ready and sip along. You can take shots as well, but I do not want you to die.
- Take a sip any time a fight scene starts
- Take a sip any time Jackie Chan drinks
- Take a sip any time Jackie Chan names a drunken boxing move
- Take a sip any time they mention boats floating or sinking in water
- Take a shot any time you think “Aren’t Anita Mui and Ti Lung way too young to be Jackie Chan’s parents?”
- If you’re watching the re-dubbed, re-foleyed American release The Legend of Drunken Master, take a sip anytime you think “These sound effects are f**king terrible.”
- If you’re watching the original cut of Drunken Master II, finish your drink after the last shot of the film and try to mimic drunken boxing poses during the bloopers -Hubert Vigilla
Game: Wooooooo, Avengers!
Film: Avengers: Endgame
Nothing is more bewildering or annoying than when people in a movie theatre clap at the screen because someone cool shows up. The cheers and hoots and hollers aren’t going to anyone people, they can’t hear you in their LA mansions! However, even more annoying than that is being the guy who complains about that, so we’re gonna make lemonade out of these cheering lemons. Boozy, boozy, lemonade.
The game’s simple, anytime anyone cheers, woos or applauds something onscreen take a sip. Choosing Avengers: Endgame to try out this game for the first time is perfect for two reasons. First off, you can be 100% positive there will be boatloads of cheering for this movie. A 21 movie buildup likely means you’ll have polished off your first six pack before the first hour mark. Second, with how sloshed you’ll be getting, you won’t remember a dang thing from the movie, so you’ll get to experience it all over again brand new!
There’s some inherent danger in this game because a lot of the cheering will probably be bookended, especially at the beginning. As long as you pace yourself, this is actually a good thing. Remember how you used to hate all that cheering? You’ll be the one leading the charge with how loaded you’ll be! Now, there is a slight problem that this movie releases a month after St. Patrick’s Day, but if you play this game, it’ll be whatever month you want to be cowboy!
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you forget to BYOB and have one of those fancy pants theatres that serve alcohol to buy from, you WILL go bankrupt. – Bradley Sexton
Game: “Drink Now” by Hughes Hall
Film: Beerfest
Games are for children. It’s what my father always said. Sure, he said it with a belt and a bit of elbow grease more than with words, but I got the gist. Children aren’t allowed to drink (though I won’t presuppose they don’t—children is a big term, expansive almost in its definition, allowing all sorts to lay claim). Ergo, drinking games are not only an oxymoron but an absolution, an excuse for those lacking the honesty with themselves to tilt the bottle back and embrace the void at the end of it. Hard knocks, wet socks.
Perhaps you need a reason to ride the lightning, but Beerfest needs no invitation to incite the consumption of alcohol. Title aside, the film is the least-branded best sales piece in cellulite ever conceived. Sobriety, meet 117 minutes of shit-show merriment. Each scene is deliverance unto itself, siren whispering for that sweet release the moment fermentation makes good the promise of liquid passing through lips teeth throat. There’s a debt due, compounding interest each and every day and your mind, your heart is looking to collect. It’s infinite jest. It’s tedium. It’s eternity. It’s space. It’s expectations crushed.
Watch five grown men drink and play with the abandon of adolescents and try not to get swept up in the whimsy of it. It’s the antidote to the darkness. Rules confine. Alcohol, solvent, dissolves, diminishing rules, renegotiating perspective, permission to break them. But some of you need your illusions. Try power-houring Beerfest; i.e. drink 1.5 ounces of beer every minute for an hour. Then make your own variants. That’s 7.5 beers in an hour. If your guts haven’t ejected your feeble efforts at inebriation, you won’t need further guidance from me. Reach deep in the cabinet above your filth-lined fridge, grab glass, chug, repeat. – Rick Lash
