Shudder Saturday: Dark Match (2024)

A wrestling horror movie may not sound like a lot of fun, but I suppose if you like wrestling and/or horror then you may get something from it. That would be the theroy anyway, and the presence of Chris Jericho certainly shows that writer-director Lowell Dean wants wrestling fans to have fun with this. I'm not sure they will.

A group of wrestlers are signed up for a job by their pretty useless manager (Rusty, played by Jonathan Cherry) that will leave them fighting for a small crowd in the middle of nowhere. The pay seems decent though, but only until everyone figures out exactly what is going on. This isn't just a series of wrestling matches. It's all designed to appease a cult and progress their nefarious plan. 

Aside from Ayihsa Issa and Steven Ogg, who I am picking as nominal leads here, Dark Match suffers from the fact that too few of the characters are worth caring about. Cherry plays his part with gusto, and he's fun, but you don't care about him. Mo Adan, Sara Canning, Michael Eklund, Stephanie Wolf, Jonathan Lepine, Justin Lawrick, and even Jericho himself don't have enough to work with in order to stand out. Okay, the latter gets a scheming panto villain moment here and there, but it's not any fun. And this film should have at least aimed to be fun.

Despite the fact that I am not into wrestling, I see why people are drawn to it. The athleticism, the showmanship, the ongoing soap opera that sets up so many different battles with different stakes. Those who are really into it tend to be DEEP into it, which is why no 94-minute movie could hope to compare. There's no attachment to anyone here, despite some of their recent history being mentioned or hinted at, and that means it's hard to really feel invested in any of the wrestling matches.

Dean does okay with his budget and resources, I guess, but it doesn't take long to notice that the two main sets are the wrestling ring and a dressing room area. Things are shot clearly enough though, and the action is visible and easy to follow, if also disappointingly dull.

I didn't find this painful or overlong, but I did spend a lot of time just waiting for everything to be wrapped up so I could end it and get on with the rest of my day. And the ending was pretty dire, considering it just reminded me of a Tenacious D music video. So I won't ever want to rewatch this, and I cannot think of anyone I would highly recommend it to. Issa, Ogg, and Cherry are the highlights. Everything else is just a bit . . . blah.

3/10

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Shudder Saturday: Influencer (2022)

AKA The Talented Miss Selfie. Or maybe that's just my pet name for this.

Everyone seems to be focused on how they present themselves online now. Not just themselves, but also their lifestyle, their surroundings, and, of course, their food. I resisted the lure of Instagram for a long time, only caving in when I decided to use it as a daily way to promote the podcast I co-host. Have I photographed a gorgeous meal? Yes. I tend to use it most to share movie images though, whether I am selecting posters or specific movie moments, and I also enjoy showcasing recent additions to my movie collection (without ever sharing a picture of the dents in my credit card balance).

Influencer, as the title suggests, shows us some people who take their time on Instagram much more seriously than I do. It's no surprise to see that director and co-writer Kurtis David Harder was also a producer on the excellent Superhost (a film that this pairs very nicely with), and the script crafted by Harder and Tesh Guttikonda, unashamedly also runs close to the many "*insert noun* from hell" movies that really started to form a solid sub-genre in the late 1980s, after the success of Fatal Attraction.

The excellent Cassandra Naud is a woman known simply as CW. She sees a pretty influencer in a bar (Madison, played by Emily Tennant) and conspires to get close to her, claiming that she could easily take over Madison's social media account and nobody would notice the difference. CW is talented with tech, able to manipulate photos and video footage to make it seem as if someone is still just living their best life, even if they're temporarily incapacitated by a psychopath (hypothetically). CW then meets another influencer (Jessica, played by Sara Canning) and starts to use her same old tricks, but this time her plan is upset by the appearance of Madison's boyfriend, Ryan (Rory J. Saper). 

While Harder and Guttikonda do well with this premise, mixing entertaining tension and obvious commentary in a way that somehow never feels too unbelievable, they have helped themselves enormously in two main ways. First of all, despite the opening credits coming in at just over the 20-minute mark, this has an appropriate runtime of approximately 90 minutes. Second, the cast are all a perfect fit for their roles. Naud is the highlight, but everyone does great work.

As she moves between charm and threat, Naud is constantly enthralling, and figuring out how she might stop things unravelling is just as much fun as watching her pull from the bag of tricks that she uses to hook in potential victims. We get to see most of the other characters trying to figure things out and maintain what they assume is a standard level of civility, but Naud gets to play the person who we see acting most often with "no filter" (and it surely cannot be coincidence that she is known as CW, which is shorthand online for Content Warning). Both Tennant and Canning are believable Insta-people, with the latter having the advantage of being able to witness things that make her more suspicious and defensive than the former. Saper's character is a bit irritating, deliberately so, but his tenacity helps to set up a finale that viewers will look forward to, knowing that there has to be some confrontation with CW that should end in one of two ways.

The more I think about this, the less I find to criticise. Of course it all starts to fall apart if you start to dig deeper into each main component of CW's plan, but it keeps everything entertaining and interesting enough that you don't stop to analyse it all while it's playing out. And, let's whisper it to avoid funny looks, there are also one or two moments here that a number of us may view as wish-fulfilment.

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: Superhost (2021)

Writer-director Brandon Christensen may not be immediately recognisable to most horror fans, but he's been creating some enjoyably solid genre fare over the past few years, and seems to be improving slightly with each film (I thought Still/Born was okay, I liked Z a bit more). While Superhost may not be the darkest or scariest horror movie you see this year, it's a hell of a lot of fun, helped by a completely unhinged turn from Gracie Gillam.

Gillam plays Rebecca, a young woman aiming to be reviewed as a "superhost" by Teddy (Osric Chau) and Claire (Sara Canning). Teddy and Claire have had a successful YouTube series for some time, but are currently losing followers, and relevance in that crowded field. Rebecca hopes to keep everything perfect though. A bad review from Teddy and Claire can ruin someone's business, as Vera (Barbara Crampton) discovered. 

Best summed up by the tagline "don't forget to like and survive", Superhost is generally fun from start to finish. The main potential problem that it has is the fact that Rebecca seems quite batty, to put it mildly, from the very beginning. But that's part of the fun, because Teddy and Claire think what they can get on camera will end up getting them a great reaction online, and push their numbers back up. Christensen does a good job of mixing the thriller element of the plot with a nice bit of full-on creepiness, at least one great gore moment, and the commentary on how things are presented online compared to how things are in reality. 

The leads do a good job, with both Chau and Canning believable in their normal interactions and equally believable when using their louder and more lively personas for their online videos. Crampton may only be onscreen for a few minutes, but she's as welcome as ever. Then you have Gillam, the manic and unbalanced heart of the film, giving a performance that easily puts her up there with the very best of the modern movie psychos. There's no surprise when her potential is fully realised, it's just up to the viewers to try and figure out what her actual motivation is.

Christensen gets everything right here. I can easily imagine a version of this movie that would have been painful to sit through, (either not casting the right people, deciding to go the found footage route, or any of a multitude of ways this could have felt wrong) but his instincts steer him right. And the fact that it all builds to an ending that is as darkly comedic as it is obvious means the whole experience is a satisfying and entertaining one.

I look forward to whatever we get next from Christensen. He's been on the right path for years, and if he delivers some minor modern classic in the next decade or so then remember that I told you so. Because I'll also say "I told you so".

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Level 16 (2018)

Written and directed by Danishka Esterhazy (who more recently gave us the enjoyable and strange The Banana Splits Movie), Level 16 is a bit of a disappointment, mainly because it hints at a bigger picture that it never shows, leaving viewers with too many familiar ideas and moments in the midst of the intriguing central premise.

Katie Douglas plays Vivien, a young woman trying her best to do well at an exclusive school for girls. The aim of the school is to educate them on how to best behave, preparing them for their eventual adoption into well-to-do families who will keep them safe (because they're also told that the air outside the school is toxic). But Vivien is told by Sophia (Celina Martin) that there's something else going on. Something much darker. The headmistress (Miss Brixil, played by Sara Canning) and school doctor (Dr. Miro, played by Peter Outerbridge) know a lot more than they would ever tell the girls, which means it's time to plan an escape.

With Esterhazy able to gain access to a decommissioned police station in Toronto and do whatever she wanted to it, Level 16 certainly feels like a movie made . . . in one building that allowed someone creative to work with an idea that wouldn't necessarily warrant a full feature without more to flesh it out. It's not that Esterhazy does anything particularly wrong in her writing or directing duties. It's just that she doesn't seem to do enough.

Douglas and Martin are both very good in the main roles, with the latter being the typical sci-fi character who suspects a twisted truth while everyone else acts oblivious and happy as they go on about their lives. Outerbridge and Canning, as the main adults, are an interesting mix. One is written much better than the other, with Outerbridge getting to layer his scenes with some interesting hints of danger lurking just beneath his carefully-maintained professional demeanour. Canning doesn't get to do much beyond the stern headmistress thing, and a change in the status quo towards the end doesn't feel right, simply due to viewers being so used to her one-note turn throughout (more to do with how she is written than the actual acting).

If you're after something that will give you The Handmaid's Tale vibes, and check the boxes of sterile, dystopian, sci-fi tropes, you could do a lot worse than this. It's made with a certain level of polish, and helped by the performances from the younger cast members. But you could also do a lot better. If you're going to base your movie around one main idea then that idea should be a great one. This isn't. It's just okay. And sci-fi that is just okay is, well, ultimately disappointing.

4/10

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Shudder Saturday: Z (2019)

The second main feature from director Brandon Christensen, who once again shares the writing duties with Colin Minihan, Z is a slick horror movie that has some enjoyable twists and turns on the way to a surprisingly dark final act.

Keegan Connor Tracy plays Elizabeth Parsons, a fairly one-dimensional female character defined by the fact that she's a wife and mother. It's the latter that's the focus here, because the film centres on her young son, Joshua (Jett Klyne), and the changes in his behaviour as he starts to spend more time with his imaginary friend, Z.

I think many horror fans can see where Z is going from that plot summary. If not, the film quickly sets up a premise very familiar to many. Joshua is a sweet kid, of course, and then starts to soon show signs of become less sweet, but still with that air of childish innocence, unaware of how his actions may be impacting on those around him. There are discussions between Elizabeth and her husband, Kevin (Sean Rogerson), discussions between the two of them and a psychiatrist, Dr. Seager (Stephen McHattie), and a general rise in tension as things become more worrying and hard to explain.

This is a slight step up from the previous film that Christensen and Minihan gave us, Still/Born (2017), although it's one that utilises a very similar approach. They're not out to reinvent the wheel, but they're intent on providing some nice moments of creepiness in between one or two VERY good jump scares. There's a moment in Z that made me both jump and also rethink how the rest of the film might play out, it's a line in the sand that is crossed over to show that, despite the polished style and familiar terrain, this isn't a film that is necessarily going to play things safe for the entire runtime. That's not to sell this as something shocking and transgressive, it isn't, but it certainly becomes something much more impressive than those early scenes indicate.

Tracy is very good in the lead role, she's an actress I have enjoyed in pretty much every role I have seen her take on, although I think this is the first time I have seen her in a good lead role (I cannot recall how big her part was in the Dead Rising movies, and most people will remember her from Final Destination 2). Klyne plays his part well, managing to act like the innocent kid he is, and thankfully Christensen never has him going through the all-too-obvious bag of tricks that could be on display if he was being depicted as "evil movie kid". Rogerson does okay, McHattie is always a welcome presence, and Sara Canning, Chandra West, and Ali Webb do well in supporting roles.

The budget can't quite allow Christensen the FX budget required for one or two main shots, although the practical side of things is impressively done, and I'm not entirely sure how well the very end of the movie works (well, I guess I should say that I don't think the very last scenes work at all), but this is another good horror movie from a duo who I hope to see continuing to work together, and continuing to improve incrementally with each project.

7/10