Thursday 14 June 2012

Monster Brawl (2011)

If there's one thing I love as much of horror movies and classic monsters it's wrestling.  So when a movie puts classic monsters against each other in a Mortal Kombat-style wrestling tournament then you know it's up my street.


8 monsters (Cyclops, Witch Bitch, The Mummy, Lady Vampire, Werewolf, Swamp Gut, Zombie Man & Frankenstein) fight to the death in a wrestling tournament set in an abandoned and cursed graveyard. Jimmy Hart is the ring announcer, there's roles for Kevin Nash, Dave Foley and Robert Maillet and Lance Henriksen does the voice of God, Mortal Kombat-style.  What's not to love?

This has been criticised for having no story or plot.  Well that's not the purpose of this movie.  It's deliberately set up like a wrestling show, with commentary, back story, promos and one on one competition.  For me, that's one of the reasons I loved this movie.  It was presented like a pay per view.  The graveyard and the monsters pays homage to old school horror, which according to writer/director Jesse Cook was the intention, because in the current horror climate where many movies aim to outdo the last in terms of gore and shock, it's nice to see a movie that takes the opposite route.  That's what's great about this.  This is one you can watch with your kids, despite the odd naughty word and odd bit of blood, it's more or less macho family fun.

Monster Brawl does exactly what it sets out to do and the results are an entertaining hour and a half that can be enjoyed by wrestling and horror fans alike.  Over time this will surely become a cult classic, because if there's two things that have devout cult audiences it's horror and wrestling.  There's potential for some sequels here and I really hope they happen.

No comments:

Post a Comment