Director: Brad Twigg
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Desperate for more out of life, an awkward groundskeeper decides to go through with his dreams of attending a legendary promoters’ wrestling school for training, but when he gets royally humiliated and everything in his life crumbles he turns into a raving maniac killing everyone who wronged him in his life.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty solid indie genre effort. Among it’s brighter points is the fine work done here to establish the main villains’ sense of righteousness regarding the reasoning for his rampage. Despite the guys’ size and general believability as a killer, his friendly persona and laid-back attitude at first come across as the type of person completely against doing this type of serial killer even with the fanaticism towards professional wrestling and love of religious sermons. Their gradual influence on his life and the eventual downward spiral he goes under after having everything turn around on him and the eventual snap he undergoes as a result of the humiliation he receives as well as their warped suggestive influence on his mindset causes the eventual rampage to come off as a rather reasonable throughput.
That build-up causes the resulting rampage to be a fun over-the-top cheesefest. The fact that so many of the scenes focus on wrestling matches gone awry as nobody expects him to resort to the type of brutal combat that he does allows for some fun and inventive setups featuring him taking out the various people who wronged him. After taking out the people from the wrestling school who humiliated him, the film’s montage showing him just running wild on the random townspeople who get slaughtered in graphic means leading up to the crazy finale with the assault on the different criminals coming to the house for a series of wild brawls and over-the-top kills. It’s all done with enough wackiness in the wrestling spots, fun indie-styled gore and general looniness with the resolution that adds a demented quality to it for better or worse, making for some enjoyable aspects with this one.
There are some big flaws with this one. Its main feature is the usual tropes here of most low-budget genre efforts that run throughout here, from the useless scenes that go nowhere other than to showcase cameos from friends of the creative crew, dead-end plot points that take up way too much running time or focusing on unimportant stories. The random encounters with the various townspeople in the montage sequence could’ve been avoided if the humiliation sequence isn’t until the halfway point in the running time by hammering into our heads their money troubles or his loser status. This is handled well in concept but the execution makes for a somewhat flawed time trying to get all the storyline points out and could’ve needed some condensing, and along with the abrupt ending are the films’ main issues.
Overview: ***/5
With a lot to like in regards to getting the rampage going as well as the rampage itself, the few issues that crop up aren’t terribly damaging and leave this as a pretty solid and fun indie effort. Give this a look if you’re a fan of these wild, over-the-top indie efforts or a fan of the creative crew, while viewers who aren’t as forgiving with the flaws or don’t appreciate these kinds of efforts should heed caution.
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