Psycho Goreman

<<

Shudder Reviews

>>

I've been wanting a new horror comedy to watch and rewatch for quite some time now, and I think I've finally found it. It's everything I could want in a good horror comedy - over the top dialogue and gore, gross-out humour that's actually there for the laughs and not just to make us cringe, and above all else, it's not afraid to get a bit crazy. It's a low budget film that knows exactly what it is, and it doesn't try too hard but rather has fun with itself.

It all opens with a backstory taking place many moons ago, on the distant planet of Gigax, where a nameless evil reigned over everything. This evil had become very powerful and was on a mission to get rid of all that was good and pure in the universe. Before he could carry out his task, however, he was imprisoned by the forces of light, and hidden away in a place beyond reach. If he was ever to be released, all of existence would be doomed to a hostile, evil takeover.

Enter two children, Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and Luke (Owen Myre) playing a game they created called "Crazy Ball" in their back yard. Now, when it comes to these two, try to imagine a sort of Wednesday and Pugsly Addams sort of relationship. The only thing is here, Wednseday's a bit more like a Hit Girl from 'Kick-Ass'. Anyway, the loser of this game has to get buried alive, so they're into some pretty death-defying stuff just for the fun of it. While digging, Luke uncovers some mysterious gem that Mimi gets her hands on, and it turns out to have been the prison for the aforementioned "nameless evil". The evil is unleashed, ready to wreak havoc on the world, and eventually the kids stumble on it. However, there's an interesting catch - Mimi has total control over it as long as she holds the gem.

The evil's self-proclaimed title is the Arch Duke of Nightmares, as, much like Freddy Krueger, he can infiltrate dreams. That name's not goo enough for the kids though, so they rename him Psycho Goreman (Matthew Ninaber/Steven Vlahos), or PG for short. The film then takes us to space, where we meet the "Planetary Alliance"; the ones who imprisoned PG in the first place. They find out about the release of PG, and send a noble warrior with an edge named Pandora (Kristen MacCulloch/Anna Tierney) to recapture him. I don't want to explain too much, but what follows is a very interesting blend. Try to imagine the movie 'Dead Alive' aka 'Braindead' mixed with 'Rick & Morty' and a dash of 'Toxic Avenger'.

There's a few tertiary characters that, to me, are well worth bringing up as the movie unfolds. First let's get some gross stuff out of the way. The 'Dead Alive' aspect of this comes largely from two characters; the kids' friend, Alasdair (Scout Flint) and a random cop named Vince, renamed Bio-Cop (Robert Homer). Each undergo some gruesome transformations, but they lead to some of the real comedy of this movie, a lot like it also does in 'Rick & Morty'. Speaking of 'Rick & Morty', if you like the character of Jerry, here we have a very similar Dad type (to Mimi and Luke) named Greg (Adam Brooks), thrown into a bizarre world and playing a sort of freaked out "everyman". He has a tough relationship with the Mom, Susan (Alexis Kara Hancey), and there's a bit of a side story about that, but he's mostly here for extra comedy relief.

Now just for the record, this is one of those movies I can't just recommend to anyone. But I think if you've ever been good with 'Rick & Morty' (which this probably reminds me of most), can handle a lot of gross out humour (although most of the humour is thankfully in the dialogue), and are on the lookout for the next great horror comedy, I can highly suggest this for, if nothing else, your free trial of Shudder. For me, this fits with 'Tucker & Dale vs Evil' or 'What We Do in the Shadows' in that it's something I'm trying to get all my friends to checkout. This one's very under the radar and, as a horror comedy fan, it deserves a solid boost in word of mouth. Personally speaking, this has a place on my all-time Top 10 horror comedies list, maybe even Top 5.

5/5

---