Customer Reviews

Wrestlemaniac

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Like my heading this DVD is OK, just OK. I don't hate it and I didn't find a lot to like either. As a wrestling and horror fan this movie has a little of both. It was originally to be set in a mental institution but was changed to a ghost town. Some of the plot was lost in the transition.

If you are a wrestling or horror fan I recommend a cheap rental of this or pick it up at a bargain price like I did. Don't expect a lot and you won't be dissappointed. The original review of this DVD listed Rey Misterio as father to Rey Misterio Jr. of WWE fame, it's actually his uncle.

I am not the most avid of professional wrestling fans. Sure I enjoy watching from time to time. At one time my son (much younger then) proclaimed he was going into the business with his best friend. Then they got into high school a few more years. The fact is there has always been a huge fan base for pro wrestling and it only makes sense that they become involved in the film business as well.

Stars of the WWE have moved into this area and done well. Steve Austin has CONDEMNED and THE LONGEST YARD under his championship belt. John Cena starred in THE MARINE. Even Triple H had a somewhat lead bad guy role in BLADE 3. Now it's time for one of the old school wrestlers to make his mark. Rey Mistirio Sr. stars as THE WRESTLEMANIAC!

You've never heard of this movie? It didn't play locally at your theater...or even drive in? Not much of a surprise as this movie is one of the worst I've seen in some time. And this is coming from someone who loves horror movies and even likes wresting.

The story revolves around a group heading down south of the border towards Caba San Lucas to shoot an amateur porno film. On the way they get lost and arrive in the town of La Sangre De Dios. Fortunately for them the "cinematographer" (known in the amateur porn world as the guy holding the camera) is of Mexican descent, a major wrestling fan and knows what this town is all about.

It seems that years ago there was a luchador (masked Mexican wrestler) developed by the Mexican government who went mad while wrestling. To hide him from the public eye, he was condemned to live in exile in a small town where he could hurt no one. But legend has it that he still lives, looking to challenge any comer to a match that ends only when the mask of one or the other is removed.

The director of the film (of course) loves the location and decides they should shoot there. Clothes come off, the tape recorder starts and in the background there is the shadow of someone watching. Could it be El Mascarado? Sure it is!

As members of this amateur production go off on their own, they are picked off by this hulking wrestler who in turn rips off their faces. Hey, when you don't wear a mask, your face will just have to do. Night falls, their car is damaged and there is no chance of escape. Whatever will they do?

Who cares! This movie has only one saving grace that it seems most low budget films have these days: a well photographed look. That's about it. We have no interests in the characters, none of them are sympathetic in the least and we have a maniac who you would think was way too old to do any damage.

Not only that, he's a boring character as well. Hulking around in his well stretched spandex tights trying to loom over the "good guys" does not a memorable maniac make. This movie wants to cash in on three things: wrestling, horror film and amateur porn. It loses on all three counts. The wrestler is one WELL past his prime (it's his son who is popular not him these days), the horror is slim (with the exception of the "unmaskings") and the porn doesn't even qualify as drive in T&A fare.

This movie might be worth watching if you had a chance to see it for free. Then again a game of solitaire on the old computer might be more fun.

This was a neat and different film. In short, a group of kids head to Mexico, only to find themselves stranded in a town that is home to a "wrestlemaniac", a guy who was a legendary mexican wrestler (mask and all), but who has since gone a bit nuts. I absolutely hate professional wrestling, and will categorically dismiss anyone who thinks its interesting. That notwithstanding, this movie was fun. The kids work their way through the mostly abandoned town, and slowly get picked off by the wrestler guy. They slowly come to realize what they need to do to defend against him, and its somewhat interesting how they do so. The acting was mostly very good (not oscar, but certainly not so bad you notice), and the production quality was quite high as well. I enjoyed and highly recommend.

The movie was okay. It could have been better. Rey Mysterios character did a good job. It took to long before I saw him.

I should have known better than to buy this movie. I happened to stumble upon it and, being my family loves wrestling, I picked it up for Christmas. It said it had Rey Mysterio (Sr.) in it. I should have stopped right there, knowing it wasn't Rey Mysterio Jr. This movie wasn't scary at all. It looked like it took all of $5 to make. There's really not much more I can say about it. Don't buy it.

Wrestlemaniac knows what kind of film it is, and it makes no apologies for itself either. The plot revolves around a small group of amateur-porn makers (including WWE babe Leyla Milani) who get lost on their way to Cabo, and end up breaking down and falling prey to a deranged and unkillable Mexican wrestler (Rey Misterio Sr.) who proceeds to stalk them, beat them to a pulp, and finish them off by ripping off their faces. If you're a horror fan of any kind, it's hard not to get some level of enjoyment out of Wrestlemaniac. There's babes, blood, and some nice gore effects, plus with a very, very brisk running time of 75 minutes, Wrestlemaniac is as good a low-budget horror time-killer as anything else you'll find these days on the direct-to-DVD horror market. Naturally you'll see better horror flicks, but you will also most definitely see worse ones as well.

I loved this film! Wrestlemaniac is a fantastically gruesome piece of cinema!!

The first two kills are off-screen, but they more than make up for it when you see a couple of the victims get their faces ripped off.

The story line was good (just dont' think too much about it), the characters were great, the three women were hotter than three dollar pistols, and the gore was gruesome.

If you haven't seen it, been thinking about it, or just wasn't real sure how good a slasher flick about a Mexican wrestler could be, just rent it, buy it, do whatever .. but see this flick.

I'm hoping there's a sequal to this since they left it open for one. I hope the sequal is better too. Thing is, most of the action is blocked out. Instead of seeing the actual killing, most of the time you just hear the grunts and screams. I too bought this thinking that it was Rey Misterio. Then, I thought it was his dad only to learn that his uncle had the name. Cool cool. Anyways, this movie is sort of Wrestling meets the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Very poorly done, most of the plot doesn't really make sense. I'm just sayin it was ok. I didn't hate it nor did I really like it. This movie definately could have been done better. And the time on it isn't very long. Needs to be lengthy.

I say, buy this movie if you are collecting movies of wrestlers. Otherwise, I'd just rent it.

I took an interest in wanting to see this about 8 months ago when a website had it as a "coming soon" release. At first I thought it starred the Professional Wrestler Rey Mysterio Junior. But I soon discovered it is not the WWE superstar, it's his Uncle, Rey Mysterio Senior!

I still wanted to see this when it was released, and it has been released for region 4 already.

Well, being a horror fan and a wrestling fan, I thought it sounded like a good idea to have a horror wrestler. After all, both horror and wrestlers are much the same in the way of a certain look, you like your wrestlers to look a certain way, and you have your slashers who look a certain way.

So how does Rey Rey Snr come across as a horror icon?

It fails miserably. The back story of his character is given to you a few minutes in, a group of people are driving through Mexico in their van, off to shoot a porno film, however, they get lost and pull into a run down shack hoping they have gas but only find the typical crazy old man who says you can go 100 miles that way with your 50 miles of fuel and be safe, or go that way and drive through el-something-o but whatever they do don't stop there, because el-Whats-his-face lives there.

Of coarse, one of them happens to be obsessed with Wrestling enough to know about even the urban myths of wrestling. He recognizes the name of the town and gives a back story about how Mexico's president was so obsessed with wrestling that they scientifically attempted to make the ultimate wrestler to help them win at the Olympics, but the Frankenstein wrestler they create becomes an out of control maniac who rips peoples faces off and kills them so they left him in a ghost town where no one should go.

Of coarse, the group go,get slaughtered, blah blah blah.

First off I had trouble swallowing the plot... so Mexico created an ultimate wrestler out of a few people? Ok... its only a movie, i know... but for Olympic gold? When has pro-wrestling ever been an Olympic event? And then he is so uncontrollable and can't stop killing, they let him live in a ghost town on his own? ... okay...., alright, so it's just a movie, we've heard more bizarre back stories before... but the rest of the movie is so lame it doesn't improve anything.

I mean, the acting I suppose is not that bad, but they could have come up with something better then the stuff they end up doing in this movie. Nothing is original, nothing feels fresh, and to have the opportunity to have a psycho wrestler, they should have actually done something with the wrestling itself... pro wrestling gets accused of being fake all the time, which it may be, but when you use it in a movie, do something you would not see in a real wrestling ring that would blow your mind... Rey Snr, like his son, does a great hurricanrana, why not use that to impale their head into something, or a clothesline that DOES take a head off... you getting my drift?

It's what you expect when you attempt to watch this, and it ends up being the typical slow, stalking, grunting, stabbing killer thats been seen a billion times before.

And the scene you think your about to see a bit of wrestling... HA, a mask does not cut it. Point is, if they chose the killer of the film to be to be a wrestler as a madman, then use wrestling, because this movie would not matter what the guys background was whether he was a mongoloid that drowned and came back for revenge in your dreams or a drug addicted ballet dancer, for this movie, it didn't matter what they used, it hasn't been done right, and its going to disappoint a lot of people who have been interested in this film. They just do not use the use of a wrestling character the way it should be done. He's just a typical seen-it-before killer in a wrestling uniform that wouldn't have mattered if he was supposed to be a wrestler or not.

Let's see if amazon actually allows my review this time. I feel i owe it to the folks who made the film. (seeing how they're not all favorable reviews)... TRY AGAIN!

So anyways, the plotline of the film is soo utterly ridiculous, you know it's not supposed to be taken seriously. True, much of the film does not deliver as to "scares" or "shocks"...unless you count the peeling off of faces...[which although gruesome, could have been better], and it doesn't deliver much T&A in case you were looking for that.

Rather it relies on humor. Its the simultaneously hilarious horror of a stalking Mexican Wrestler named EL MASCARADO, plodding and deranged, killing people one by one: ripping off faces and the absurdity of the film that save it. The nod to Jason Voorhees is made apparent and even gets screen time(!) when its clearly painted on a dilapidated building facade: VOORHEES (maybe they're friends?)

Maybe the bad humor may be lost on people who are not familiar with Mexican Wrestling. The way this film was handled makes for soo many gut busting laughs. The over the top acting maintains character without turning cartoonish or BORE-ishly bad... (like that other wreck... one of the worst films of all time Grindhouse Presents, Planet Terror - Extended and Unrated (Two-Disc Special Edition) Now THAT film was a horror. A total piece of garbage, its hard to believe such an awful film was produced by a major studio when the money could have been spent to do something meaningful.

INSTEAD, WRESTLEMANIAC doesn't go that way. Sure, there is little substantive plot, there are several misplaced and mis-staged scenes, continuity errors, some ridiculously STRAIGHTFORWARD exposition lines: the portly guy on the trip also happens to be familiar with the legend of a Mexican wrestler who emerged after 3 Mexican wrestling champions disappeared (Suggestive of some sort of Frankenstein creature) AND the film could have devoted some make up or scar tissue to the villain as well just to drive that point home.

BUT(!) there is also a completely hilarious scene involving a 60 year old reel to reel tape machine playing back the apparent "lab results" of testing on this Mexican wrestler killer: the absurdity of this film kept me LAUGHING... boy did i laugh... and with the gorgeous and buxom Leyla Milani, how could you complain? There were some RIDICULOUSLY google eyed moments where the camera deliberately pans to her...uh... "goods".

I must say though, the film makers suffer a serious case of hubris when they don't end the film the way it really should have. Instead of opting to have the finale culminate in the heroine Ms. Milani, taking the advice and killing EL MASCARADO, or simply removing his mask, OR BOTH culminating in EL MASCARADO shouting AY CHAVELA!!! (like the opening credits and bringing the humor and horror full circle with a great ending)

Instead of taking it that route and securing a life in the history of B-Movies and Cult Trash flicks, the directors leave us with a garbage ending where El Mascarado DRIVES off away down the highway in the victims' van..IN BROAD DAYLIGHT! How a filmmaker could ultimately try to create the substance of a larger than life horror monster and simultaneously DESTROY any credibility to that effect by having him DRIVE AWAY...is utterly ridiculous. It destroys the mystery of the character and gives this film the horribly flawed ending that it has.

But all in all, this is the kind of film that makes for a bad laugh with friends with a couple of beers. Its laughably bad, but KNOWS IT IS. RENT IT or buy USED as much as i liked it i would not be caught paying $25 for this film. I bought it used.