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Some people get excited about the latest Marvel or DC movie. Others can't wait for the next Star Wars. But when it comes to the movies that I look forward to, they're often ones that slip under the radar. My goal is to change that under the radar status of this movie.
From the moment I saw the first trailer for this, I knew I was in for something special. After all, director Steven Kostanski was behind Manborg and The Void, one of my favorite movies of the past few years.
Now, he's created Psycho Goreman, a movie that takes the energy and over the top gore of the straight to video era without wallowing in nostalgia. Basically, this is a movie for kids that no kid should see but they should totally see, a film that reminds me of the thrill from being the only kid in class who had seen The Pit and The Gate. This movie is packed with practical effects, singalong montages, brutal battle scenes, so many monsters and the best gore I've seen in years.
I smiled throughout this entire film. If someone made a movie just for me, this would be it.
The Arch Duke of Nightmares -- the being who will one day be known as Psycho Goreman -- has been exiled to Earth in the wake of a battle between his armies of evil and the the Templars, a religious sect out to purify the galaxy which just might be -- spoiler warning -- worse than the destroyer of worlds that has been exiled to Earth.
The Gigax Council -- led by Pandora, the Prime Templar Crusader (Kristen MacCulloch) and made up of Kortex (Matt Kennedy, who directed The Editor and Father's Day), H.I.S.S. (which stands for Hyperion Isolde Sepintine Sorceress), Dr. Meganoid, Tube-Man ), Star Stryker 77, Allan and the Judicator -- have defeated the most evil creature to ever walk any planet and separated him from the jewel that gives him his power.
Meanwhile, down on our doomed mudball, Luke (Owen Myre) and Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna), a brother and his bully of a sister, have found the crystal that controls the beast and have renamed him Psycho Goreman. Played by Matthew Ninaber with the voice of Steven Vlahos, he's a perfect mash-up of Oderus Urungus and Pinhead, yet completely and utterly original.
Despite assuring the kids numerous times that he will kill them, Luke and Mimi take a break from playing their invented ball game to walk their monster around the neighborhood, watching as he decimates the police, murders some thugs and transforms their friend Alastair (Scout Flint) into a gigantic walking brain.
However, it doesn't take long for the past to come calling, as PG uses his blood to call for his old troops -- the Paladins Obsidian -- to come take him away from all of this. They are Queen Obelisk, the royal matriarch to the Cemetarium Collective, a twisted sect of interstellar necromancer berserkers (yeah, this movie is exactly that awesome); Witchmaster, a sinister sorcerer from the distant Tokusatsu* system ; Cassius 3000, the golden swordsman that not even PG trusts (Conor Sweeney, who wrote The Editor); Death Trapper, a living cauldron filled with the bodies of those it has already murdered and Darkraiser -- who much like Starscream once did to Megatron -- has taken the command position when PG was sent down to Earth,
Through all this, the kid's parents, played by Timothy Paul McCarthy and Alexis Kara Hancey -- try to stay lazy or keep it all together respectively.
Imagine a world where instead of E.T., Gertie and Elliot ended up getting the Darkness from Legend. That will give you some small idea of what this movie is all about and yet it has one major conceit: perhaps Mimi is a bigger monster than every practical effect monster in this gore-drenched epic.
The Astron-6 crew has made some pretty great films. This is the highest achievement I've seen from any of them, presenting a fully built world full of creatures that I want to see in a million sequels. I'm fully ready to buy tons of action figures and t-shirts of every single monster in this movie and you will be too.
For a creature whose entire existence is built on death and destruction, Psycho Goreman has a heart. Sure, he learns how to harness the power of love to probably kill every single being on our planet, but he also learns how to play drums and the love of a little girl -- not like that'll save any of us.
It's nice to have your high expectations exceeded. I'm more than an advocate for this movie. I'm an apostle.
*Of course, this is the Japanese word for special filming, which is often used to describe movies like Godzilla.
score 10/10
BandSAboutMovies 18 January 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6502336/ |
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22-1-2021 03:58:04
