“Five deaths in the ring. That is the thing.”

Genre: Wrestling Horror
Release Date: 2025
Where I Watched: Shudder

Gist: It’s 1988. In the world of small-time wrestling league SAW, heel Miss Behave (aka Nick) wants to make it big, and that means becoming a face. When SAW gets a chance to put on a show at a “dark”  (untelevised) match out in the middle of nowhere, she thinks she’s got her chance. SAW’s manager Spencer thinks this is gonna be a huge payday. Nick’s off/on boyfriend “Mean” Joe Lean thinks it’s too good to be true. Only one of these characters is correct. Spoiler: it’s Joe.

Gotta say: I love a good grindhouse cinema homage. And when a film starts things off with blasting Trooper’s “Raise a Little Hell”? I get amped. But Match takes a promising idea and doesn’t know what to do with it. Ideas are squandered, subplots sputter out, and characters are more brief suggestions trotted out so they can fall into the meat-grinder. That meat grinder is pretty cool though. So there’s that?

Writer/director Lowell Dean brought us WolfCop, so you know this guy can do campy horror. However, the flow of Match isn’t up to Cop‘s standards. Dean brought a knowing sense of humor to Cop, winking at the audience as the shenanigans unfolded. I don’t know if he tried to go semi-serious here, or if he just fumbled, but the delightfully bonkers vibe of Cop did not appear here in Match. The look of the film is great though, with a Creepshow vibe thanks to the heaping helpings of filters. There’s lots of red, pink, blue and green, though the comic-book aesthetic isn’t used during the actual matches. C’mon, give us some wild, Dean. Give us some crazy. No? Gonna tell, not show? Okay. Cool.

The cast seems to be trying to keep things fun, but with most performers given very little to do aside from bleed and die? That’s not a lot to work with. As Miss/Nick, Ayisha Issa delivers a performance that’s much too good for this movie, and her onscreen chemistry with Steven Ogg’s Joe is sweet, messy, and believable. That she was able to have me feel for one of the also-ran characters during that character’s death is truly a testament to her skills. But both Issa and Ogg play their characters as serious as a heart attack, and with those performances alongside vague whiffs of other characters, this film just feels like an opportunity wasted. Which I lay at the feet of Dean; he’s got performers who can go through their paces, yet seems unwilling to let them sink into the silliness of this film’s premise.

Match is a good one to put on and veg out to. At an hour and a half, it’s a fine flick to queue up when you’re kinda sleepy, or when you’re catching up with friends and want something playing in the background as you devour snacks and hang out. You can chat during the slower scenes, and focus up when the matches happen. Don’t get any ideas of a cool ending though; like the rest of this film, there’s a promise of something awesome that never delivers.

Come for: A new horror for the new year! Woo!
Stay for: The bloody FX that makes this so-so story worth sitting through.