DARK MATCH (2024)

Studio:   Shudder
Director: Lowell Dean
Writer:   Lowell Dean
Producer: John K. MacDonald, Don Depoe, Michael Feehan, Rhonda Baker, Michael Peterson
Stars:    Ayisha Issa, Steven Ogg, Sara Canning, Jonathan Cherry, Michael Eklund, Mo Jabari, Stephanie Wolfe, Leo Fafard, Chris Jericho

Review Score:

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Summary:

An underground wrestling outfit unwittingly becomes part of a plan to summon Satan as they are forced to perform in deadly matches at a strange cult’s compound.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In 1988, Stars of Amateur Wrestling (SWA) manager Rusty Beans puts on an indie show featuring his performers Miss Behave, women’s champion Kate the Great, veteran wrestler “Mean” Joe Lean, silent luchador Enigma Jones, defending men’s champion Lazarus Smashley, Kid Humble, bible-thumping tag team Thick n’ Thin, and Wicked Wolf and Bad Badger of The Beast Brothers. Frustrated by being repeatedly passed over despite her talent, Miss Behave, whose real name is Nick, breaks kayfabe by injuring the promotion’s main draw Kate the Great during their match. As a result of Nick’s actions, Rusty disciplines her and a talent scout dismisses Kate, causing conflict between the two women.

Rusty accepts a lucrative offer to bring his group to a remote location that turns out to be a cult’s compound. Joe notices the cult’s leader is his former in-ring nemesis, The Prophet.

During a welcome party for the feast of Lupercalia, several wrestlers unknowingly drink drugged beverages and are also seduced by suspicious women. Two women brand Rusty with their cult’s symbol. Another woman goes to bed with Joe, which complicates his already rocky romantic relationship with Nick. Kate and Carol Anne, a high-level cultist, coerce Nick into smoking a strange joint with them.

At breakfast the next morning, Nick asks her fellow wrestlers if anyone else noticed how unusual the place is. After he is caught in bed with the other woman, Joe tries explaining to Nick that he has no memory of what happened the night before.

Secretly desiring revenge against SWA, The Prophet introduces a wrestling event titled “Lupercalia: The Rebirth” to his assembled cultists by touting five matches with “five offerings.” For the first match, the “Wind” match, the two tags teams face each other with a large fan blowing from the floor of the ring. Thin is shocked when his partner Thick is brutally slaughtered by The Beast Brothers, who unexpectedly entered their match wearing masks and spikes while appearing entranced.

Before leaving the green room for the second match, a “Water” match against Kate the Great, Nick points out to Joe how they are being guarded by armed cultists led by Carol Anne. Meanwhile, Prophet’s second-in-command, Spencer, threatens Rusty to stick to the script he’s been forcibly given despite Rusty’s horror at the gruesome deaths unfolding in the ring.

During their match, Kate confuses Nick by saying she doesn’t want to die in the ring. As an overhead sprinkler drenches them, Kate becomes dangerously aggressive toward Nick. Nick defends herself with a chain she ultimately uses to kill Kate.

Prophet reveals Kate was his daughter when he tearfully mourns her death. Prophet pulls a gun on Nick, but Spencer convinces him that Kate’s death counts as the necessary sacrifice.

Armed guards throw Nick back into the green room with Joe and Enigma. Nick explains what happened. While revealing how the cult’s leader is his old rival, Joe recalls how Prophet grew dark and violent when his religion gimmick veered into occultism. After Joe broke from the script to defeat Prophet in what would be his final match, Prophet disappeared.

At gunpoint, guards force Enigma to wrestle Kid Humble in the third match. To fit the match’s “Earth” theme, the mat is covered in dirt. Shards of broken glass are then painfully forced into Enigma and Kid Humble’s fists. The match ends when Kid Humble seemingly kills Enigma.

Unable to follow instructions, Rusty is thrown into the green room with Nick and Joe. Together, the three of them pull a ruse that ends with the trio taking out their guards. In pointing out the camera operators surrounding the ring, Rusty offers his belief that the cult is actually a front for Prophet to make major money by recording and selling underground snuff films.

Guards escort Joe to the ring for his “Inferno” match against Lazarus Smashley. Rusty escapes outside. Nick also escapes the green room, but she remains behind to look out for Joe. In the meantime, Joe’s match ends after Lazarus accidentally immolates himself from a fiery cauldron in the center of the ring.

Nick discovers Enigma faked his death and is still alive. The two of them begin taking down more guards. Armed with an automatic weapon, Enigma shoots up the control room, including Carol Anne, the video director, and all the recording equipment.

Nick starts a fire that causes remaining cultists to flee. Spencer fights Nick. Enigma saves Nick by kicking Spencer into a pole that impales him. However, Enigma falls over dead.

For the final “Spirit” match, Joe faces off against Prophet in a vicious confrontation connected to their past. Nick ultimately rescues Joe by killing Prophet.

Nick and Joe escape as the building goes up in flames. Rusty returns in a van to drive all of them away from the scene.

Having survived Enigma’s gunshot, Carol Anne manages to complete the cult’s ritual while the building burns down around her. Carol Anne successfully summons Satan, who subsequently stops Rusty’s van on a snowy road. Armed with her signature chain, Nick rushes forward to bravely fight The Devil.

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Review:

What a way to scrape together a living. Traveling from one backwoods town to another while packed into a broken-down van. Sleeping in sleazy motel rooms. Taking chair shots to the back and slaps to the face night after night, all for the entertainment of a few dozen locals hooting and hollering in a dirty building’s basement. This is life on the underground indie wrestling circuit. For the colorful characters of “Dark Match,” it could be their death too.

With everyone in his outfit hungry for nickels to rub together, Rusty Beans, the promoter for Stars of Amateur Wrestling (SAW), can hardly say no to a mysterious offer to put on a high-paying show, even if it is in the middle of nowhere. Defending champ Lazarus Smashley, silent luchador Enigma Jones, Wicked Wolf and Bad Badger of The Beast Brothers tag team, and a handful of fellow mat rats cautiously take that trek out to the boonies where it looks like they’ve been called to the compound of a cult celebrating a weird pagan ritual known as Lupercalia.

What’s weirder are the gimmick matches they’re forced to participate in. Incredibly talented yet consistently underappreciated, Miss Behave is set to take on her rival Kate the Great in a “Water” match where sprinklers gush overhead. Miss Behave’s boyfriend, veteran scrapper “Mean” Joe Lean, draws the opposite element with a fiery “Inferno” match. Joe already suspects something strange since he recognized the cult’s leader as his former in-ring nemesis, The Prophet, whose religious shtick took a turn into occultism before he inexplicably disappeared years ago. Looks like he’s back. And it looks like he may be taking revenge by orchestrating a witchy ritual around wrestling that is set to summon none other than Satan himself.

“Dark Match” got me thinking. How did I handle B-movie believability when I was younger? Like, when I watched a “Puppet Master” sequel or some similar slice of straight-to-VHS cheddar, did I naively not notice cheesiness, did I willingly walk into the fantasy anyway, or did I simply not care about cut corners the way I do as an adult? What was the criteria for suspension of disbelief then, and what is that criteria now?

I ask because “Dark Match” overstuffs itself on plenty of shots where the camera’s lens practically wipes an actor’s nose or shadows conspicuously cover backgrounds to hide how small the sets are, and how few extras exist in sparsely populated crowd scenes. Accordingly, buying into the setting of rabid fans cheering on a wrestling show, even a small one, necessitates an amount of looking the other way that varies between a little and a lot, depending on one’s individual inclination to do so.

Although I was initially iffy on accepting the film’s economical atmosphere, “Dark Match” eventually got me there. At first, the skimpy production value was distracting. With the movie testing the limits of what could be considered remotely realistic, I found myself wondering, did I lose my ability to be immersed in low-budget aesthetics, or did the movie lose me?

What “Dark Match” made me realize as its runtime rolled on, is that a well-made B-movie can cash in credit earned by sincere effort to make a swayed viewer say, “Alright, I can get into this,” in spite of ambition reaching slightly beyond financially achievable means. I’ve seen footage of indie wrestling before, usually on TMZ whenever a fallen idol of ‘80s fame shows up drunk and does something disappointing in a Midwestern church hall. Through its fast-paced progression offering few opportunities to stop and count the seams, and through sharp technical polish, “Dark Match” picked up the credibility to convince me its story could look close to what such events are like in reality. Enough so that by the time things get bonkers with fists formed out of glass shards and blood-soaked ceremonies for conjuring demons, there’s no reason to sell the stock you’ve already invested in the movie’s entertaining imagination.

“Dark Match” also works well because of its balanced acting, particularly by Ayisha Issa as Miss Behave and reliable Steven Ogg as “Mean” Joe Lean. No one tries to win an Oscar. Everyone knows what movie they’re in. Yet they play their parts with the right serving of seriousness so “Dark Match” doesn’t slip into silliness, which a more careless movie would quickly do given this concept and cast of quirky weirdos.

In a good way, “Dark Match” reminds me of an ‘80s-‘90s Blockbuster rental. Not in terms of cheap quality or mishandled tone, and not necessarily as an homage to horror’s home video heyday, but as an appealing brand of genre fare I don’t feel inspired to look at cynically. I can just enjoy the movie for what it is. Flaws end up befitting the offbeat fiction, making the simple yet slick flick ideal for pairing with pizza on a Friday night, or maybe on a weekend when it can be fittingly followed by “Saturday Night’s Main Event.”

Review Score: 65

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