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Dark Match Review
Image Credit: Fantasia IFF
Loading...Directed by: Lowell Dean
Written by: Lowell Dean
Starring:
Ayisha Issa – Miss Behave
Steven Ogg – Joe Lean
Jonathan Cherry – Rusty
Mo Adan – Enigma Jones
Chris Jericho – Prophet
Sara Canning – Kate the Great
Michael Eklund – Spencer
Leo Fafard – Lazarus Smashley
Stephanie Wolfe – Carol Ann
Running Time: 94 minutes
Not Rated
Pro wrestling and horror have such a wide crossover in the fanbase that it’s surprising there haven’t been more horror films about wrestling in the US. Not that it hasn’t happened – indie flicks like Here For Blood, Wrestlemaniac, Death Rumble and more prove that there’s a market for it, but it does seem like an untapped market for a genre that is so often willing to cross the line.
Dark Match is the kind of movie that makes me hope filmmakers tap into that market more often. Lowell Dean’s latest film takes quite the shift from his Wolfcop franchise, trading lycanthropic hilarity for the grindhouse feel of the independent territory days. Premiering on Shudder on Friday, the movie leans on the cast’s chemistry and Chris Jericho in a key role in order to appeal to fans looking for a little more evisceration in their graps.
Set in the days of the fading wrestling territories (without any actual companies mentioned), Dark Match centers on the struggling SAW Wrestling promotion which is home to scrappy talent such as heels “Mean” Joe Lean (Steven Ogg) and Miss Behave (Ayisha Isse) alongside babyfaces Lazarus Smashley (Leo Fafard) and the masked Enigma Jones (Mo Adan). While top babyface women’s wrestler Kate The Great (Sara Canning) is getting a look from the “big leagues,” the rest of the talent appear stuck on the dying indie circuit.
When SAW promoter Rusty (Jonathan Cherry) gets an offer to perform an untelevised event for big money, he can’t say no to the money. That brings the crew out to the boonies where they are treated to quite the party before the show. But to Miss Behave, something seems off. And Joe is suspicious when he sees The Prophet (Jericho), who he feuded with years ago and who was blackballed from the business, holding court.
Once things get to the showtime the next day, it’s clear to Miss Behave and Joe that not everything is as it seems. And when the gimmick matches they’ve been booked for prove to have lethal consequences, it becomes a fight to survive against what seems to be a cult (led by The Prophet, of course) that has much darker things in mind than the usual stiffing the promoter out of his payday.
Lowell has been open about his love of the old school days of wrestling, and that’s clear in the story and visual aesthetic he sets up in Dark Match. While he doesn’t get too in the weeds with wrestling jargon or backstage politics, there’s a solid balance between the realities of the business in that era and the heightened reality of cult horror. An opening scene shows an SAW show with Kate and Miss Behave calling a match in the ring, and the occasional utterance of terms like kayfabe nod to the business behind the show in just enough ways to lend a touch of authenticity.
Dean shoots the film with a grindhouse touch that plays to the SOV era of 1980s horror while also accentuating the grimy, bingo hall feel of the era’s independent wrestling scene. The green-soaked motif does a lot of heavy lifting for the tone and gives the cast plenty to work with.
The characters are familiar tropes with a knowing wink to them – Enigma Jones is a “method” performer who always wears his mask and doesn’t speak, for example, while Joe Lean is the grizzled old guy who knows a road story or two that comes in handy. It’s the performances that elevate them; Issa and Ogg have great chemistry as the couple who are trying to navigate not only their love lives in the less progressive era of the ’80s, but also the suddenly deadly situation they find themselves in.
Jericho, the most well-known performer of the cast, makes clear choices to distance himself from his real ring persona. He adopts a David Koresh-type softness to his character with a rasp in his voice for much of the proceedings, giving The Prophet a sort of quiet menace under his natural charisma. It’s a broad performance, but one that fits firmly within what Dean is accomplishing here. And Adan, a Canadian wrestling talent who worked some matches as Mo Jabari on AEW Dark, brings humor to his largely silent performance as Enigma Jones.
Once the action gets going and blood starts spraying, the pace of the film picks up considerably. The matches are a bit of a mixed bag; the story needs to fit them into a ritual with Air, Water, Earth and Fire but is constrained by screen time and budget, so a couple come off as somewhat uninspired. But there is carnage to spare and Dean frames the matches effectively, using them to build to the mysterious main event as the wrestlers try to figure out how to survive and escape.
There’s also a question of The Prophet’s ultimate goal, which seems a bit muddled in the last act as it comes into conflict with the ritual. It’s perhaps one story element too many in the film, but it’s also hard to be too critical when it leads to some action sequences that deliver the goods.
Dean is working within the 1980s Satanic panic vibe that Ti West used with House of the Devil. While the two movies are doing very different things and have different looks to them, they feel like they could be part of the same world in which dark cults prey on those in need. That goes for everything down to the wild ending that, despite Dark Match’s occasional bouts of unevenness, has me hoping (it is that praying?) for a sequel.
Dark Match premieres on Shudder and AMC+ on January 31st.
