Wrestling for the brainless and faceless
WRESTLEMANIAC
2006/18/73m
“Let the face off begin.”
Director/Writer: Jesse Baget / Cast: Rey Misterio, Leyla Milani, Jeremy Radin, Adam Huss, Margaret Scarborough, Catherine Wreford, Zack Bennett.
Body Count: 6
Dire-logue: “Hasta la vista…you fuck!”
Six teenagers driving through a Mexican scape that looks suspiciously like California take one of those classic film wrong turns on their way to a beach where they intend to shoot a porno on a camcorder and end up in La Sangra De Dios, a ghost town inhabited solely by lobotomised wrestler El Mascarado who, in spite of the solitude, rigidly sticks to the rules of south-of-the-border wrestling: that your opponent is permanently retired upon the removal of his mask. Or, in the case of lost teenagers, removal of the face will do fine.
After a start is indistinguishable from a sombrero full of other ‘comedy’ slashers, with heavy injections of skin and girl-on-girl action, the killing ushers in a quite enjoyable slasher opus that remains loyal to the genre cliches for the most part, whittling down the players until the surprisingly capable final girl embarks on a quest of vengeance against the killer.
Just how much do you want to escape in one piece?
Played by Mexican champ Misterio and under six feet tall, our loon looks far more imposing than the hulking American WWE wrestlers who have ventured into the body count genre.
Clocking in at a comfortable 73 minutes, nothing gets boring and Wrestlemaniac plays out like a gored-up version of Scooby Doo and ends with the sentiment ‘keep it simple’, a mantra which has served the film quite well.
Blurb-of-interest: Catherine Wreford was in The Butcher.