Death Rumble: A Wrestle-Horror Mashup That Taps Out Early!
Horror and wrestling, whilst in the squared circle, go well together with characters and scenarios across modern history being part and package of horror, it’s unfortunately true the same cannot be said for the two merging in movies. If a wrestler becomes an actor in a horror film, all is well, but if the film is about wrestling…. hmm.
The only two I can think of that are okay has to be Wrestlemassacre and Fight Like a Girl, whilst others such as Wrestlers Vs. Zombies, Wrestlemaniac, Monster Brawl, and such are a total mess or play too heavily on comedy.
Yeah, comedy features way too much in this flick, Death Rumble. I discovered this via Christina Von Eerie’s Instagram account. Christina has been working various promotions since 2008 and I first saw her in a gory brutal as fuck death match courtesy of CZW at their 14th Anniversary show against a man who, at the time, was the centre of all things Death Match – Masada. They totally annihilated one another, blood everywhere. In fact, I’ve never seen a crowd look so stunned as when the punk girl (who I reckon many were watching very closely) started gushing blood from her head.
So that was the bait, can Christina act in a horror film? The answer is definitely, yes. It’s a double-edged sword though, because she’s one of the only members of the cast that can. As the credits start, we catch glimpses of a clan of nowhere town hillbilly folk accompanied by a slasher movie by the numbers metal tune, doing evil things. The ring announcer, tobacco chewing Garret, sees a poster showcasing a gang of wrestlers on the indie scene making their way to town soon.
Christina, as Scary Mary, is seen grappling in a small venue and she’s pissed off with her opponent afterwards. Hmm, on a shocking personal note, with her hair down (first time I’ve seen that) Christina is an almost double of my Partner in Gore, Willow — same features shape, mouth piercings, nose shape, length of hair (dyed a different colour) and build. A multiverse Willow. (Fact, Willow trained to be a wrestler many years ago). Hence she wasn’t happy as I kept calling her Willow Von Eerie throughout the evening. We also meet King Billy, her partner, and our main character. Believe me, it’s actually only Christina and Scotty Mac who take the time and effort to deliver decent acting skills to their roles. Scotty also supervised all the rasslin’ for the movie.
The rest of our upcoming rasslin’ victims are standard – stuck up manager, wannabee star, two almost twin brothers and so on. The show continues for the mediocre enthusiastic crowd and shows why the independent circuit is such a wonderful place. No big budgets, etcetera, just people arriving to enjoy the show and believe what they’re seeing for the evening. Meanwhile, two sinister folks watch proceedings, Garret and hat wearing, Annie. Fuck me, this is corny. Funny but cheesy. The wrestling is standard family entertainment arm locks, throws, rope bounces and so on. It’s nothing special. “I took care of their RV,” whispers a bloke to Garret.
Like the beginning of Rob Zombies, 31, the gang head off in their RV with jokes and jollies, trying desperately to character build. Yes, only Scary Mary and Billy do anything remotely with depth. Meanwhile the parent figurehead of the community, Ma, is tracking them on satellite and screwing with their Google Maps. They end up in the back woods. And a big yes, it’s all so set around the before mentioned Rob Zombie. This is redneck killers and good ol’ boys with guns.
There’s a trap set up that surprised both of us when nobody spotted it coming up. Oh no, they’re stranded with no signal. Why the fuck are the rest of these travelling rasslin folks so irritating? Vax and Chantelle can kind of be stomached but the others!!! As they explore and talk you hate them more and more. The Double D’s, Dave and Duey, scout ahead and are social media twats. Okay, they’re written to be annoying but there’s a line in the sand and the script crosses that line like a long jump star. This is when the sore infected boil of the movie comes into play — the comedy. There’s funny music which annihilates anything that was building up.
Our hillbilly gaggle meet the Double D idiots. Writer and director, Rusty Nixon gives it a shot of building up once again as the name, Elmo is dropped more than once. Ooooh, monster man beast abounds sooner or later. Double D show off their death match scars to an old timer whilst the ring is being constructed. This is the problem sometimes using real wrestlers, not all of ‘em can act. Not everyone is a Roddy Piper. Some are middle such as Hogan, others fall to the bottom as they are untrained. At least we have Scotty and Christina to hold us up.
Speaking of which, they and the rest are collected by Garret. We laughed for the first time at the brilliant moment he stares at Billy with a cheek crammed full of tobacco for a lengthy awkward silence between them. His cheek is like a huge cist. Scary Mary and Billy sit at a table signing loads of posters for the creepy-ass locals. Billy autographs a poster with a bloke on who went missing a while ago, “That was his last show,” comments Billy. The guy stares at him, “I was there!”
Jesus, may as well call the film, Death Rumble with the Fireflys. It’s all so painfully obvious as to what influenced this whole dilemma. Ma reveals some town history to Billy before drugging him. The manager is killed, everybody else is tied or chained up. Well, apart from the Double D posse. Elmo has taken a liking to them both. Elmo is a huge hulking long haired dungaree wearing simple fella, who loves to wrestle, and can change personality just by wearing the mask of a lost rasslin’ legend — the same one who went missing — and he’s still alive. Taylor the Terror is paralysed, he warns Billy of what is happening in that town.
“Seven feet tall! Four hundred pounds!” Elmo, the local grappling hero, steps in and takes on Scary Mary to start with, but then Billy, figuring that their only chance is to play along, challenges him to a match for his belt. In doing so, this leads the clan into a trap of his own. However, the town folk aren’t stupid…
The backwards comedy, the lack of any tension, the basic storyline all chucks Death Rumble into a quick pinfall. Unlike Wrestlers Vs. Zombies, which is so bad it’s brilliant, this drags its knuckles for such a lengthy time without anything to redeem it. For the final quarter, we have a few killings, mostly caused by Chantelle, who goes absolutely psychopathic, and that’s about it. Elmo (Twan Holliday of Stan Helsing and American Mary) is a complete deflating let down. None of the heels are threating — not even Garret (Travis Watters trying his bloody best with his scenes and lines) and we kind of saw him as the main villain.
Not every film needs gore and FX but this could have done with something nasty just to keep the interest going. Willow Von Eerie zoned out after about half an hour (maybe less, I don’t know) and I honestly wanted to like this film but couldn’t find anything to latch onto, except Christina and Scotty’s characters.
I love low budget movies; I love low budget wrestling. I truly thought that Death Rumble would be a fun little gem. Unfortunately, it almost put me into a sleeper hold. At least the cast looked like they were having a laugh.
Directed by: Rusty Nixon
Written by: Rusty Nixon
Produced by: Tim Warren, Bryce McLaughlin, Alan MacFarlane
Edited by: Mark Deeter, Rusty Nixon
Music by: Jonathan Knosp, Wicked Cinema, Hill and more
Special Effects by: Tammy Fox, Mark Deeter
Cast: Scotty Mac, Christina Von Eerie, Twan Holliday, Brenda Matthews, Alice Mao, Jed Weiss, Travis Watters
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 23min
Studio: AB Films
Distributor: Green Apple Productions