Cinco De Crappo: Wrestlemaniac

Happy Cinco De Mayo, everyone!  Speaking as part-Irish/part-German born and raised in Florida, this means nothing to me, save for a day that people like to go out drinking.  I'm sure that there is more to than that- a statement I make in order to avoid offending what little of an audience I actually have.  I went back-and-forth on what to do for this day.  An El Santo movie perhaps? A Mexican horror film, maybe?  How about a shitty horror film made by and starring a bunch of white people?  I chose that one, but I have a good reason.  In a nutshell, the movie is a Frankenstein rip-off that features a zombie-like Luchador as its heavy.  As a bonus, that killer is played by Rey Mysterio Sr, the patriarch of a wrestling family that is only rivaled by the famed Guerreros.  Of course, the problem with this is that Mysterio was famous quite awhile ago and this film was made in 2006.  On top of that, the movie poster did the best they could to make you think that it was actually Rey Mysterio JR in the role.  Mind you, that would have meant the film would have had a 5'3" guy as the killer, which would just be silly.  How much crap is this movie and will it drive you to drink?  Find out in my review of...

The film begins with a woman running out of an old building and covered in blood.  After this and the above title card, the movie cuts back to a group of douche bags driving in a van.  We've got a mustachioed jerk who thinks of himself as a big-time director...that makes porn.  The cameraman is a fat guy who is supposed to be our Mexican expert, but who actually looks slightly-less white than me.  We also get a stupid stoner who apparently didn't realize that the guys took his van...with him in it.  I really hope he dies first.  In the back of the van, we have three whores...I mean, female leads.  One of them is passed out and will stay that way for the next thirty minutes of film time.  Another is an oddly-buff woman who looks like a sluttier version of that lady who has a show about a gym on Bravo.  The final one is a busty blond who was actually a WWE Diva's Search loser.  That's the kind of pro-wrestling heritage that this movie needed!  Incidentally, the film tries to bolster it's rep by showing old-school (read: public domain) luchador action over the credits.  It sort of kills this by randomly freeze-framing it for a second and playing it over shitty music.  Besides, all it does is remind us of what we're NOT going to see.

The movie goes from bad to worse in a hurry as our heroes are *sigh* lost.  They pull over at a gas station for directions where they warned not to go to a ghost town by a creepy man.  Do normal people ever work at these places in horror films?!?  Back on the road, the fat guy regales the passengers with the tale of El Mascarado, a crazy Luchador.  In a nutshell, he was *allegedly* created as an Adam-like Luchador in order to win the Olympics, but he went crazy and got locked up in the town.  As we'll see, there's no gate really holding him in, so why doesn't he ever leave?  Anyhow, the jerk director/driver runs over a rock and messes up the car right as they get into town.  Man, I love it when plot conveniences just pop up like that!  Undeterred, the director decides to go shoot in town & has two of the woman crawl on a bar top and make out.  Okay, so the movie does have its high points.  Seriously though, the movie teases some real dirty stuff but cuts away after about a minute of this to follow the previously-comatose girl.  She runs off sick and books it all the way out of town.  Easy there, Mrs. Bolt!  She gets snuck up on by the movie's POV camera and dies.  A bit later, the stoner guy wanders out and meets a similar fate near a bar.  Considering we have a cast of six people, this should be a short movie!

The last third of the movie consists of either violent, bloody deaths or padding.  After talking, our heroes split up, with three of them looking for the missing duo and Ms. Diva's Search fixing the car up.  Um, you go, girl?  They wander around a bit before discovering the bodies and that they are being followed by...something.  The film goes out of its way to hide the killer's identity, which is odd considering that he's all over the DVD cover.  After a chase and some door smashing, he kills jerk guy in the longest manner humanly-possible.  The guy gets stabbed with a bolt, smashed into a rock, kicked, stepped on and finally killed with a neck snap.  You'd think that guy owed him money!  The fat guy and the buff girl run some more and hide in a room right out of Bioshock that contains audio files explaining the monster.  Fun fact: they don't subtitle the Spanish tapes- jerks.  Fat guy figures out the key to beating the monster: taking his mask off.  Cornered in a room with a ring of sorts in it, he puts on his mask and challenges the guy.  This fight occurs off-screen and we see him bloodied in seconds.  The girl gets her back broken and her face ripped off like a Luchador's mask.  Finally, Ms. Diva's Search fixes the car and drives into town.  The thing chases her a bit, she hides and it chases her more.  She stabs it during a struggle and flees, but finds a pole through her chest.  Um, what?  The End.

This is not a good movie by any means.  The whole idea of these movies is to set-up characters you care about and don't want to die.  They do the opposite!  Aside from Buff Lady, they're really not all that likable.  Hell, even Ms. Diva Search's big feminism moment with the car is just plain annoying- because of her, mind you.  There's a reason that her biggest gig has been holding a briefcase on Deal or No Deal!  This movie's biggest problem is that it has no heart.  All of the characters are cliches, the suspense is mostly jump scares and the gore is just sort of random.  You get none of it for forty-plus minutes and then suddenly the movie turns into The Wizard of Gore!  Pacing, people- pacing!  The villain is nothing to write home about and his back-story is told through a shit on of forced narration.  The movie insists on hammering this crap into our heads.  Speaking of which, you would think that an Adam character would have scars or stitching- not here!  He's just a big, angry Luchador.  If La Parka didn't scare me on WCW Nitro, this guy sure is hell is not going to now!  Had this movie had better writing, pacing, acting and direction, it could have been good.  Just skip this film and hit the Cerveza instead!  I'll leave you with the only redeeming factors of the movie...

Next up, I celebrate a lost '80s slasher film involving teen girls, a killer and, well, that's about it.  Ah, the good old days.  Stay tuned...