Dark Match

 

Dark Match

2024

Director- Lowell Dean

Cast- Ayisha Issa, Steven Ogg, Chris Jericho, Mo Adan, Jonathan Cherry, Sara Canning, Michael Eklund, Jonathan Lepine,  Justine Lawrick, Leo Farad, Mitch Clark

            Something that every organization or community has is its own lingo; phrases and terms that outsiders don’t usually know. This is true for martial arts dojos, union halls, the military, the boy scouts, and cults. Professional wrestling practically has its own lexicon of hundreds of terms known only to its participants and loyal fans.

The term in question here is “dark match.” It refers to a non-televised match. In the old days it might be used to describe matches before or after a televised show, or occasionally a non-televised match where something unpopular might happen, like a heel (the villain) winning a title.

The term isn’t used much anymore since every organization is always looking for more content for all the various streaming services. Today the much less menacing term “house show” is used to describe non-televised events where fans can see their favorite wrestlers, usually in much smaller venues, competing in matches that don’t affect the planned storylines.

Dark Match follows a tiny independent wrestling promotion in the late 1980s. Very small, it consists of a handful of wrestlers, either past their prime or never having made it to the big time. The protagonist of the film is Miss Behave (Ayisha Issa), a heel character who regularly loses to her blonde babyface opponent, Kate the Great. Miss Behave dreams of the big time but knows she’ll never get it working in the small organization. Her boyfriend, Mean Joe Lean (Steven Ogg), is an aging former champion on the tale end of his career.

The organization gets invited to perform in a dark match for a celebration in a rural town. Even though it seems sketchy, they are offered a sizable enough chunk of change to lure them all in. After arriving, they find themselves the prisoners of a satanic cult led by The Prophet, a former wrestler who had a religious gimmick and was eventually black balled from wrestling (played by real life pro wrestling champion Chris Jericho). The cult is planning an elaborate ritual that requires five sacrifices and the wrestlers are forced to fight each other to the death.

It’s a fun concept and well executed. There isn’t a lot of wasted time and we get to know the principal characters pretty quick. The film doesn’t look cheap, but it does have a dull gritty appearance that will remind you of watching an old VHS. If I had any complaint its that only a few of the wrestlers’ characters are developed. I think of the classic fighting match movies like Enter the Dragon or Bloodsport and those movies did a pretty good job of giving a lot of the fighters distinct looks and personalities. Dark Match could have benefited from more of that.

If you are old enough to remember wrestling before the WWE was luring in global audiences, you’ll remember the old regional promotions with wrestlers mainly known only to people in a 3 or 4 state area. You might see the recorded matches televised on a local channel on a Saturday afternoon and were just as likely to see the wrestlers picking up a 6 pack at a local gas station as they passed through. Dark Match conjures up just enough of that feel to cause some inner synapse zaps for people that can remember those days.

Check it out it if you’re a fan of wrestling and horror or if you are just looking for something different.

           

Immaculate

 

Immaculate

2024

Director- Michael Mohan

Cast- Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Dora Romano, Giorgio Colangeli, Simona Tabasco

            Sister Cecilia (Sidney Sweeney) is a young nun who has just arrived at a convent in Italy. The convent serves as a hospice and retirement home for older nuns, many that are close to death or who have developed dementia. The younger nuns, like Cecilia, take care of their elderly Sisters in their twilight years.

            After a short time in the convent, Cecilia becomes sick and it becomes quickly apparent that she is pregnant. After a rudimentary examination, her pregnancy is proclaimed a miracle, an Immaculate Conception. Cecilia is immediately placed in a position of reverence among the other sisters but the miracle begins to seem sinister and Cecilia starts to wonder what horrible thing has truly happened to her.

            The movie mixes equal parts religious trauma with body horror. Cecilia is quickly reduced to an unimportant object whose only value is in giving birth, regardless of her own desires or the dangers. Also, despite being in an environment surrounded by women, she finds herself at the mercy of men, as the Father, the Cardinal and the convent’s male doctor have complete say as to what happens to her.

Isolation, dogma, and hierarchy are used along with psychological gaslighting to create confusion and dread. The viewer knows that the truth, whatever it is, won’t bring relief.

            The film’s budget, though comparatively large by independent standards ($ 9 million) is still rather small by Hollywood standards. The film, which languished in development Hell for years, was saved by Sweeney’s recent Hollywood success. She had auditioned for the role years ago, and then ultimately became one of the film’s producers helping to finally get it off the ground, which makes this a bit of a passion project for her.

            It’s a very American film but has visible roots in Italian horror. First there is the location, with principal photography taking place in Rome and much of the dialogue being in Italian. The film further shows its love of Italian horror with a prominent use of Bruno Nicholai’s “Servizio fotografico” from the giallo, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. There isn’t a lot of gore in the film, but what there is, is very graphic and Fulciesque with people’s faces being obliterated in a way that would have seemed natural in one of Lucio Fulci’s films. Also, though the film is not a gothic horror, it has a gothic aesthetic. Sweeney, walking through the darkened convent corridors with only a candle to guide her, clothed only in a thin white gown, looks very much the part of a gothic heroine.

            The film is a competent horror movie that most horror fans will find enjoyable, at least for one view. However, the story unambiguously deals with the very modern issue of reproductive rights, and there will be a few people who will identify very much with the protagonist’s struggle. I can easily see Sweeney’s nun taking her place alongside Florence Pugh’s Dani from Midsommar or Mia Goth’s Pearl, at least for the people who will identify closely with her.

           

Black Candles

 

Black Candles (Los ritos sexuales del diablo)

1982

Director- José Ramón Larraz

Cast- Helga Liné, Vanessa Hidalgo, Jeffery Healey, Alfred Luchetti, Manuel Gómez-Álvarez, Carmen Carrión, Paola Matos

From Spain

            The movie has a striking poster with the demonic man carrying a naked woman with more beauties in the background and an angry goat off to the side. Well, there is nothing in this movie that is as scary as that poster, but it definitely doesn’t over sell the sex!

            The movie begins with a schmuck cheating on his wife, Fiona, played by German born Spanish Scream Queen, Helga Liné. Seriously, who would cheat on her!?! Well he gets what’s coming when he is murdered with a bit of witchcraft.

            Later, the schmuck’s sister Carol (Vanessa Hildago) shows up to both pay respects and wrap up family business. Tagging along is her husband who seems consistently pleased with himself.

Carol’s spidey sense begins to tingle when she notices several pieces of satanic artwork on display in Fiona’s living room.  Fiona plays it off and when asked about her husband’s death, she blames it on his drinking. Carol decides to get nosey and finds herself on the wrong side of a witch cult that doesn’t take kindly to strangers.

            The plot of the film is not really that original, incorporating tropes from both the satanic and folk horror genres. However, it packages those tropes quite well and delivers on the eroticism with occult elements that feel authentic and occasionally shocking. Two such scenes include the lithe Paola Matos ,who turns in an unforgettable performance first with a lesbian sex scene and then a scene where she has sex with a black goat as part of a magical ritual! Another scene that stands out is where a man is punished for betraying the coven. He is held down and raped with a sword (don’t betray witches!).

            The real significance of the movie, at least to me, is that it served as the swan song for Helga Liné’s horror career (though she would continue to act for another 25 years in non-horror roles).

Helga’s horror career spanned parts of three decades and involved significant contributions in different horror subgenres alongside some of the biggest names of her era. She had a  supporting role behind the queen of Gothic horror, Barbara Steele, in Nightmare Castle (1965). She starred in several Italian giallo film’s most notably So Sweet…So Perverse (1969) which also starred fellow Scream Queen Erika Blanc. She shared the screen with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas in Horror Express (1972).

            Her most important contributions came, though, as part of the Spanish horror exploitation movement in the early 70s. Its important to bear in mind that Helga was in her 40s by this point and stealing the show from women half her age! She worked twice with the king of Spanish horror, Paul Naschy in the Mummy’s Revenge and had the costarring lead with Naschy in the excellent Horror Rises from the Tomb. She had the starring role in The Loreley’s Grasp directed by the man who gave us Tomb of the Blind Dead, Amando de Ossorio. She also starred in The Vampire’s Night Orgy, directed by León Klimovsky who had worked with Naschy on many occasions.

            Mixed in with these horror staples she also starred in the strange Italian action/ suspense film Kriminal and she even shared the screen with Mexican cult figure Santo in Santo vs. Dr. Death!

            All of that brings us to Black Candles. Helga often took on sexy roles and never shied away from showing skin. Helga was 50 when she did Black Candles but her smoldering beauty had not cooled a degree. If anything, her age made her much more believable as the dominant force in the cult. 

            But Helga always carried herself with the grace and control of royalty (case in point, see her as the witch returned from the dead in Horror Rises from the Tomb). Black Candles is a very erotic role, and as I said before, shocking in places. It makes the perfect exclamation point to a horror career that included the biggest names in Gothic, Spanish, British and Italian horror.

Fun fact- Director  José Ramón Larraz was no stranger to eroticism. He is best known for the bloody, sexy film Vampyres, one of the best films in the lesbian vampire sub-genre.

I Drink Your Blood

 

 

I Drink Your Blood

1971

Director- David E. Durston

Cast- Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury, Jadin Wong, Rhonda Fultz, George Patterson, Arlene Farber, Lynn Lowry

            Rabid Satanists; that sums up the plot of this film in 2 words. It’s an idea so bizarrely funny, I can’t believe no one had thought of it before!

            A cult of Satanic, LSD tripping hippies breaks down on the side of the road and takes refuge in a nearby rural community that’s on its way to becoming a ghost town. The cult is headed by Horace Bones (great name!), a charismatic, Manson-inspired, autocrat.

 

   

            The cult holds up in an abandoned house where they go about torturing one of their own members for kicks. The town’s apparent patriarch, an old man who happens to be the town veterinarian, sticks his nose into their business and gets beat up. If you ask me, he got off light. If horror movies have taught me anything, its to stay away from hippies. The old man’s grandson decides to take revenge.

            The kid works at the only remaining store in town, where the Satanists have been buying their groceries (the Prince of Darkness doesn’t supply everything you know!). The kid kills a rabid dog, drains its blood, and injects that blood into meat pies sold to the Satanists. I have to say, that’s a pretty devious plot. Maybe that kid missed his calling and should have joined up with the hippies.

            The Satanists partake of the tainted meat pies and soon show signs of infection. In short order they become rabid, murderous maniacs that start killing each other and the locals. At one point, one of the female Satanists goes down to the local mining camp for a gang bang which results in a whole bunch of rabid miners (no, rabies it’s not sexually transmitted, lol).

            The movie is silly in places as its depiction and description of rabies is laughably inaccurate. However, since the hippies were also on acid, I guess we can chalk up any inaccuracies to that. Besides, if you’re watching I Drink Your Blood as prep for your microbiology exam, I guess you’re already in trouble.

            The movie was released as part of a double feature with I Eat Your Skin (a previously unreleased zombie film that had its name changed for the purpose of creating a memorable double billing). It has developed a cult following and despite any shortcomings, has a lot to recommend it.

 

            About 30 years before “diversity” became a buzzword, the Satanic cult in this film was made of brown, black, white, east  Asian, and Indian members (I guess Satan has always been egalitarian). Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury’s performance as Horace the cult leader is very good. He has Hollywood level good looks and you have to wonder why he never went on to a bigger career. There is some memorable gore that looks pretty convincing. Animal rights advocates may want to skip the film. There are a few scenes involving animals and given the film’s age and low budget, I assume they were using the real thing. If you can handle that, I Drink Your Blood is a fun addition to your grindhouse collection.

Fun fact- Scream Queen Lynn Lowry made her film debut in this movie as the sexiest member of the hippie cult. Two years later she would star in George Romero’s The Crazies (another movie about people driven homicidal by an infection) and then two years later she would star in yet another film about homicidal infection, David Cronenberg’s Shivers.

The Hexecutioners

 

 

The Hexecutioners

2015

Director- Jesse Thomas Cook

Cast- Liv Collins, Sarah Power, Timothy Burd, Tony Burgess

            So right off the bat lets acknowledge that Hexecutioners is not a very good name. Sounds like the title of a GWAR song. Now that that’s out of the way we can talk about the movie which is actually pretty original.

 

            The film operates under the premise that euthanasia is now legal across the land. Malison (Liv Collins) is a lowly technician who gets dispatched to carry out the life ending procedures.  She had aspirations that it would be a dignified way to end people’s suffering but she soon runs into the degrading realities of profitable death. Her bosses are less concerned with dignity than the bottom line.

            To cure her of her naiveté, she is paired with Oliva (Sarah Power), a cynical technician who isn’t above skipping the niceties and ending her client’s lives with a bullet to the head.

 

   

            They are sent out to the country to take care of a special client; a millionaire who has paid a hefty sum to have his death carried out in a very specific manner. The client, horribly disfigured, seems to be almost catatonic. Their only other human contact is Edgar (Timothy Burd), the lone care taker and servant. The women find that they have been lured into a house haunted by cursed spirits and they are now unwilling participants in an elaborate occult ritual.

            Hexecutioners is a character driven story that focuses on the personalities of the two women and their relationship. It has a small cast which allows for plenty of character development. It’s a competent horror film that seems informed in regards to its occult elements. There’s no attempt at a happy ending so don’t expect one.