Wrestlemaniac (2006) Review

Written by: the5thdroog   

I have to say I was a little excited when I heard what this movie was about. I masked wrestler going around ripping the faces off his victims. I grew up on wrestling as I’m sure a lot of people did. My favorite was Mr. Wrestling #2. I don’t know what happened to number 1, but I didn’t care. His mask actually reminded me a lot of a movie I used to watch with my grandfather. It was about wrestlers who fought zombies and monsters while using their wrestling moves. The one I liked the best was El Santo and nobody could stop him and his friends . This movie however, was no El Santo…too bad.

It starts out with a group of kids in a van traveling to Mexico to shoot a porn. On the way to the beach they take a wrong turn and end up at a broken down gas station. After trying unsuccessfully to get inside the boarded up store, out comes a stranger in a wrestling mask. Luckily one of the kids is a huge wrestling fan himself and has a mask in his back pocket to challenge the stranger. It doesn’t get any further than that, but the stranger (Irwin Keyes) takes off his mask and tells the kids about a short cut to the highway. Only thing is they need to just keep on going when they pass a town called “La Sangre De Dos”. The wrestling fan of the bunch Steve (Jeremy Radin) tells the stranger that the town is just a legend and doesn’t exist. They get back in the van and take the short cut. Steve tells the others about the myth of the town. About how El Mascarado was this wrestler that was made by the Mexican government to have a better showing at the Olympics. He was three of Mexico’s best wrestlers fused into one, but he went crazy and started killing people in the ring. The story continues about how they took the wrestler from the ring and tried to experiment on him to make him more suitable for wrestling. La Sangre De Dos was the town they were supposed to have taken him to do the experiments. The tests only made things worse and he was said to have killed the whole town because no one could beat him. The group ends up finding the town and decide to start doing their shoot there. It is completely deserted. Things start happening and the kids wonder if not only are they not alone, but how much of the legend is true.

The acting wasn’t that bad as a whole. I mean just seeing Keyes was fun for me. The one person I do have to comment on is Adam Huss who plays the director and somewhat leader of the group Alphonse. His acting was extremely annoying to me. I realize that his character was supposed to be an ass, but Huss accentuates this point by doing a lot of over-acting. I was hoping there was going to be a quick end to him. I also liked Ray Misterio as the killer. It didn’t take a lot of acting, but at least he is an actual wrestler just like Santo was.

The effects were decent. It was pretty neat stuff, but it just got to be repetitive. I can’t really say anything bad about someone getting their face ripped off, it just seemed to be the only real effect. Their were a few other little gags, but nothing worth mentioning.

I was hoping for a lot more of this movie, so maybe it is my fault I was disappointed. I like the idea, but I could’ve used some more kills. Maybe a bit more variety would’ve been welcomed as well. If there is a sequel I will see it and I think it could actually be better, but we’ll see. I was also a little disappointed in the tease factor of the porn aspect of the movie. I wasn’t expecting a porno, but for them to go on about things the way they did, I expected a lot more than what was actually shown. Small bother, but just the same it couldn’t have hurt the movie. Good story, nice build-up, it just missed in the pay-off department for me.