Wrestlemaniac

A Panther Joe Romp

Director: Jesse Bagat
Starring: Rey Misterio, Sr, Leyla Milani, Jeremy Radin
Release: 2006

It's always good to see an entertaining, independent movie. A flick you just know the creators poured more sweat into than actual dollars. This is how I felt after I watched the campy horror flick, Wrestlemaniac.

Predictability has never been a positive attribute of the slasher-horror genre, but that doesn't matter when you consider execution and whether or not this was a tribute movie. I believe fans of the bad-guy-wiping-out-people-with-no-remorse movies who turn around and produce them have good intentions at heart and often strive to remake what they so love. Just interchange the setting, faces and back story and all that's left is actually producing the film. Unfortunately the line between fun thriller and Octopus 2: River of Fear is finer than the typical 'slut' you'll find getting killed off early.

Wrestlemaniac follows six people venturing down into Mexico to shoot scenes for an amateur porn movie. Somewhere along them not being prepared and (holy shit, don't do that) actually going into the Mexican wasteland they become stranded in the ghost town, La Sangre de Dios. One of my favorite parts of this movie was seeing that town name hand-painted on the entrance at the foothill of the valley.

Before breaking down in their Dodge van, the crew learns of the story of El Mascarado, arguably the craziest and best Mexican wrestler ever to walk into the ring. Steve, by far the smartest of the group, tells his friends that back in the 60's Mexico wanted to win the gold medal at the Olympics in wrestling so they created El Mascarado from the parts of the four best Mexican wrestlers at the time...

and then he went batshit insane and killed everyone he wrestled with so they banished him to La Sangre de Dios, where he proceeded to slaughter all the townspeople, thus making it a ghost town. The fact that these idiots stumbled into his lair made for quite the conflict.

The cast did an excellent job throughout the movie. It's one of those isolated movies and if I remember we only saw a total of eight people in the entire movie. The crazy local, the stoner, the douchebag, and the smarter girl all put in their work but the main protagonist Steve (Radin) stood out. I guess you would call him the reasonable one but his heroic qualities and enthusiasm for Mexican lucha-libre wrestling was refreshing.

The two main female leads served their purpose, but Dallas (Milani, pictured) became more and more likable as the movie progressed. Even the bad guy, El Mascarado, was downright creepy at times. The only thing that was slightly off is when he was around he would make this strange growl, almost as if he were trying to clear his throat. The violence was tempered and tasteful but still maintained its spooky backbone. This is definitely not a cheesy movie where it depends on how much gore they can fit into the lens; it maintains the mystery in that you can only imagine what that monster did to end that poor persons life.

My only complaint about the flick was the lack of actual wrestling. I was under the impression that the psychopath would stage matches against his victims but this is barely brought to the surface (see: one backbreaker and a couple of Ric Flair-esque slaps to the chest).

Any slasher fan will appreciate most aspects of Wrestlemaniac, whether it be the pacing, the intriguing back story or the eye candy. It was damn practical, too; the movie clocked in at just under 75 minutes.

The Conversation

Again, for some reason when I post videos to Vimeo, it doubles the length and repeats just the audio for the second half. This video review isn't actually 33 minutes long. As you were.

Here's the link to December Fire '83 I mentioned in the review. It's the second issue, called The Cassette. Until next time...

Conan the Destroyer

I’ve started this film multiple times, but never quite managed to make it through. Not because I didn’t like what I was seeing, but because I wanted to watch it from beginning to end. I had seen the first installment of Conan, and I found the first chapter to be much more…barbarian? Is that funny? I don’t know anymore.

Conan the Destroyer (1984)
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grace Jones and Wilt Chamberlain

Story
This “sword and sorcery” tale is the sequel to 1982’s Conan the Barbarian (directed by John Milius), which was quite a bit darker and violent than its successor. Destroyer had that “campy” feel that Ben usually talks about, but I never get what he’s talking about. “They didn’t go camping in this,” I would say.

Anyway, the story starts with Conan (Schwarzenegger) kicking some serious ass. In the first two scenes he’s already punched a horse and a camel! How could this be bad? An evil sorceress then tricks him into helping her niece go on a long and dangerous quest for a key (it’s actually a diamond) that opens a temple to a mystical horn. The horn is then used to wake up the ancient deity Dagoth. Oh, and there's fights with barbarians of every tribe along the way! It's totally barbaric!

The fighting scenes were pretty tame, although there was some decapitation. But nothing lived up to the dark, barbaric feel of the first movie. I kept thinking of The Neverending Story (1986) because Conan’s environment was just so clean and fantastical that he didn’t really seem to fit in. Destroyer was more dependent on magic and myth than the battles and brutality of the first film.

Characters
Schwarzenegger proved again that he could play the emotionless brute, even though it seemed a bit laid back. I mean I’m not looking for him to go a hateful rampage, but at least get a little angry. Chamberlain did well as the Princess’ bodyguard, but his personality is one-dimensional at best. There weren’t any real annoying dwarf characters (i.e. Masters of the Universe), but Conan’s sidekicks Malak and Akiro are portrayed as goofy and infantile.

Final Thoughts
Although violent to some extent, this movie was clearly produced for a middle school/high school audience. With the exception of Grace Jones’ bare buttocks (meh.), there was no nudity, or swearing, or gratuitous sex; pretty much all things that immediately come to mind when I think barbarian were absent from this film.

Now, I’m not one to just call a movie “terrible” or “bad” and move on. Destroyer accomplished everything it set out to do: a quest was started and completed, there were numerous battles with Conan kicking some butt, and I was thoroughly entertained. But the fact that it makes the movie seem like a story in a chain of movies pisses me off, cause they never make the sequels. The best they produced was Red Sonja and Kull the Conqueror, with the latter being the most similar to a sequel to Conan the Destroyer, only with Kull as the protagonist. In short, Destroyer felt more like an interlude to a bigger story that never happened, and for that, I was pretty disappointed. But for those who enjoy a good, “campy” action movie set in a "sword and sorcery" environment, check this out. Hey, if you watch it with me, we may just get some Italian ice afterward. Sound good?

The Killing Room

I heard good buzz about Jonathan Liebesman's 2009 film The Killing Room after its premiere at Sundance last year, so I decided to check it out. It's a minimalistic thriller, set in mostly two rooms, and I've been a fan of films like that for a while now (movies like Tape, Hard Candy, Saw, Rear Window, and 1408 are good examples of other entries in the genre). So did the movie live up to the buzz? Read on to find out.

The Killing Room

Director: Jonathan Liebesman

Starring: Timothy Hutton, Nick Cannon, Chloe Sevigny

Since most of you have never heard of this movie, I'll embed the trailer below so you can check it out. (By the way, whoever converted that trailer for the web should be fired.) The story follows a group of volunteers who sign up to participate in an experiment. At the same time, a hotshot government employee is undergoing an interview process to join a covert operation. Her job is to monitor the experiments and give her evaluation to the man in charge, a shady man who is giving her unorthodox "interview." When she discovers that the experiments are part of the MK-ULTRA program, a real-life study involving mind control and brain manipulation thought to be defunct years prior, things ramp up as she realizes things aren't going to end well.

Overall, though, this movie just didn't do it for me. It wreaked of a Saw rip-off, going so far as to have an ending with a similar vibe (although very different plot-wise). It was well-directed, but the initial shot you see in the trailer was really the only time the film had me in its grasp. The rest of the time I was trying to remain engaged with the plot, but there really wasn't enough there to hold onto. I think this is a good example of an idea that sounds good in theory but doesn't pay off in execution. The material takes itself very seriously, and we're never truly given an explanation about how the Man in Charge is able to legally get away with his actions. (He vaguely responds that this project has always operated outside of governmental control and he has "full amnesty." I'm going to need something a bit more legit than that, Chief.)

The performances were OK, but there really wasn't anyone who stood out. Nick Cannon played one of the characters, but his acting was probably the worst of the bunch. He over-acted so heavily (he was supposed to be a down-and-out, possibly homeless, guy) that I was certain there must be a twist where his character is actually some sort of undercover badass, but alas - nothing nearly as interesting happened over the course of the film.

The pacing was really uneven throughout; even the editing seemed to change speed during certain scenes for no apparent reason. There was some action near the end, involving running through hallways and potential double-crosses, but the entire experience left me apathetic. There are so many better films out there (such as the ones listed above) that use the same structure, so I wouldn't recommend seeing The Killing Room. There are plenty of other movies that also feature the same themes and plot points (Richard Donner's Conspiracy Theory comes to mind), so the combination of the Saw-style setting and the familiar material left me feeling like I'd seen this movie before.

OH! I almost forgot. If for some reason you do decide to check out this movie, good luck understanding what people are saying. The cast mumbles its way through half of the dialogue, and the other half is spoken by the Man in Charge with a sporadic thick accent, so I went to turn on the subtitles just to comprehend what was going on. What's that, DVD? You only have a "Play Now" and a "Scene Selection" option on your menu? What is this, 1997? Step up your game! There weren't any subtitles, so I had to change the settings on my TV to "Speech," and even then I missed a good portion of the mumbles and slurs. Just a suggestion to all you filmmakers out there - if you want people to like your movie, you should probably make it clear what your characters are saying.

The Killing Room = weak sauce. Here's hoping the rest of March Madness is filled with higher quality content. From me, at least - I can't promise that Trehern won't throw another ninja movie into his queue before the end of the month. But if he does, hopefully it's watchable at the very least. Until next time...