A HOMAGE to the grindhouse films of the 1970s, Dark Match is a low-budget horror with splatter and lunacy in abundance.
A Shudder original, from the director of WolfCop, Lowell Dean’s grimy exploitation flick is far better than it really has any business being. A puerile B-movie about a small-time wrestling company, it won’t win any prizes for originality, film craft or performance, but it’s a lot of fun and certainly doesn’t pretend to be anything above its station.
This is pure mindless and action-packed entertainment that rouses its audience with everything from grunting amateur wrestling to innovative satanic rituals, and elements of the deadly strategising straight out of the Saw movies.
Fighting With My Family this certainly isn’t!
Set in the era of VHS and spandex, Dark Match brought back fond childhood memories of Saturday morning’s spent watching Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks prancing around in their polyether underpants like thundering toddlers.
This bargain-basement beat down follows a down on their luck wrestling company who accept a well-paying gig in a backwoods town only to learn, too late, that the community is run by a mysterious cult leader with devious plans for their match.
Think the golden age of British wrestlers holding a backyard tussle in Waco, Texas, under the watchful gaze of David Koresh and his Branch Davidian religious sect. At first, it all looks like heaven on earth, but once the veil lifts and the punch starts flowing, things quickly take a very calamitous turn.
Clearly very little was spent on making this cheap as chips house show but it, somehow, pulls out the all the stops, kicks ass aplenty and avoids a dusty finish. Rather miraculous, really, when the only money clearly parted with was for the use of Cameo’s “Word Up’ and ‘Shout It Out Loud’ by KISS to indicate its 1980s timeline.
Ultimately though, despite its unwieldy weight, Dark Match proves a real guilty pleasure of knuckle-dragging mayhem.
(3/5)
