A troupe of wrestlers are forced to fight for their lives when they
accept an invitation stage a private show.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Lowell Dean
Starring: Ayisha Issa, Steven Ogg, Chris Jericho, Sara Canning,
Jonathan Cherry
Unlike boxing and martial arts, wrestling has been ill-served by cinema.
Most wrestling movies tend to centre on the personal drama outside the
ring (The Wrestler; The Iron Claw) rather than the violent acrobatics within the square circle. I guess
the fact that (and I hate to break it you kids) wrestling is fake, with
the outcome of every brawl predetermined, makes it difficult to construct
a compelling underdog story in any traditional sense. The best wrestling
movie is Robert Aldrich's All the Marbles, but that film had to lie and present wrestling as a legitimate
competitive sport rather than entertainment, or "sports entertainment" as
it's become known.
In Mexico of course they have the Santo series of films, in which the
titular masked wrestler battles all manner of supernatural foes.
Writer/director Lowell Dean takes his cues from the
spirit of those movies with his wrestling themed horror flick Dark Match, though the tone is nowhere near as madcap as the uber-campy Santo
movies (think of the '60s Batman TV show).
Set in 1988, Dark Match sees indie wrestling operation SAW receive a lucrative offer to put
on a private show out in the boondocks. SAW's unscrupulous supremo Rusty
(Jonathan Cherry) gathers his roster of brawlers, which includes
Miss Behave (Ayisha Issa), a talented performer who feels
underappreciated; her popular rival Kate the Great (Sara Canning);
veteran performer Mean Joe Lean (Steven Ogg), who is in a secret
relationship with Miss Behave; and the masked and silent Enigma Jones (Mo Adan).
Rusty splits the "faces" (those wrestlers positioned as heroes) and
"heels" (the villains, existing to draw boos from the fans) into two
separate vans and hits the road, but his van full of heels is delayed by
engine trouble. Arriving at their destination they find a party in full
swing, but there's something off about the strange green booze on offer,
and everyone wakes up with little memory of the previous night. As the
wrestlers begin to prepare for their show, they come to realise that this
is no ordinary event, and they'll have to fight for real if they want to
make it out alive.
Another reason for wrestling's unpopularity in movies is probably down to
its proliferation on TV. If you want to see some giant athletes toss one
another around, there's no shortage of options. Wrestlers ply their
back-breaking trade several nights a week and the organisations have the
choreography down pat. It's difficult for a movie production, with its
limited time frame, to replicate such thrills. That's ultimately the
biggest problem with Dark Match: for a movie that features so much action in the ring, its staging
doesn't do enough to make it stand out from what the WWE and other
franchises offer audiences on a near nightly basis.
Dean devises various unique scenarios for his bouts, each one based on a
natural element and introduced with an ominous title card, but they fail
to live up to their billing. "Wind" is simply a big fan under the ring;
"Water" is just a sprinkler dowsing the fighters from above; "Earth" is a
mound of dirt in the centre of ring and so on. If Dean is attempting to
evoke over the top '80s martial arts movies like Bloodsport, his offering never quite manages to replicate the flamboyance of that
sugar-coated, neon-soaked era. Shot with a hideously garish colour scheme
and sloppy handheld camerawork, it's all a bit low rent. Only Issa emerges
with any real credit, fully convincing as someone who could become a
wrestling star, but her character is far too much of a badass for us to
ever feel she's in any real jeopardy.
Dark Match takes its title from the wrestling term for an untelevised bout
that isn't part of the official canon. Franchises use such events as dress
rehearsals for the real deal. Perhaps Dark Match should have followed suit and spent more time honing its moves
before going in front of the cameras.
Dark Match is on Shudder from
January 31st.
