Dark Match is a 2025 horror film released by Shudder, written and directed by Lowell Dean, and starring Ayisha Issa, Steven Ogg, Chris Jericho, and Sara Canning. The story follows a group of pro wrestlers in the mid 80s that are employed by a small-time promotion and get roped into a well-paying gig by their rowdy and incompetent boss and promoter, only to find out maybe too late that the community they are performing in is ran by a cult leader with twisted ideas for the match card. Just from the synopsis this movie sounded right up my alley, a horror film that centers around pro wrestling and has Chris Jericho as the main antagonist? Yes please, sign me up, I’m there. All in all, I think this movie delivered on the basic premise and the promise you get from the summary. There’s certainly a lot of professional wrestling wrapped up in this entire project, from matches taking up entire scenes, all the way down to the lingo and dialogue the wrestlers have with one another. I personally enjoyed that element as a wrestling fan, you can tell Lowell is a major horror fan and a major wrestling fan just by the way he wrote and directed this movie, as is the film’s main antagonist and legendary pro wrestler Chris Jericho, so I’m sure this was a passion project for many of those involved. For those of you who aren’t big wrestling fans though but love horror, I feel like this movie would be a little bit too “inside baseball” for you, the film feels like it’s intentionally attracting itself to a niche audience and not really attempting to break new ground or draw people in from outside its target audience and that’s okay! You don’t always have to make movies for the masses, sometimes I enjoy when a filmmaker does passion projects that are more personal to them and their interests rather than trying to just make a profit off it. You get to see and understand a filmmaker more from their personal projects than their blockbusters. Not that Lowell Dean has many blockbusters out there (no offense man), but just in general I enjoy when a filmmaker makes something more near and dear to them, even if it doesn’t appeal to everyone. I didn’t realize until I joined a lot of pro wrestling and horror fan pages on social media though that there is a decent bit of crossover between those 2 audiences so maybe he’s one of us and made a movie just for us.
I feel like there was definitely some Rob Zombie influence in this movie. From how the characters acted and reacted to things and the dialogue between them all, the creepy backwoods folk working together and plotting the main characters’ demises behind their backs, and especially the cinematography. Some of these shots felt as if they were shot straight out of an acid trip. The use of different colors, close ups, and camera angles changing and flashing quickly throughout the wrestling scenes in the movie made you feel more on edge and certainly made the tension rise through those scenes so that was definitely a creative and well done way to film pro wrestling inside a horror film, kudos. Steven Ogg was good as usual here as one of our main leads ‘Mean Joe Lean’, I can’t help but continue to see Simon from The Walking Dead when I see him in things though, or Trevor from Grand Theft Auto V depending on your preference. It may have to do with the fact that he hasn’t changed his hair or mustache style in forever either though, so he continues to look the same. Chris Jericho played his part as ‘The Leader’ pretty well, overseeing the “show” and making sure things proceeded as planned until he got his chance to step in the ring. Chris Jericho is popping up in more and more horror related things the past few years, from being a guest on Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, to appearing in a small role in the Terrifier franchise, so it made all the sense in the world to see him pop up in this movie and in a role like this. Ayisha Issa was the standout for me though as the badass and vicious female lead ‘Miss Behave’. She had a good little side storyline here as well with being a black woman in the wrestling industry in the 80s and trying to overcome that stigma, and her and Steven Ogg’s characters trying to overcome the judgment of being a mixed couple in the 80s as well.
This movie won’t really be for everyone though, it’s mainly made for wrestling fans and even then, I don’t think everyone that’s a wrestling fan is really going to vibe with this movie just based on that alone. Like I said, this movie feels like if you were to watch or attend an independent wrestling show while going through a bad acid trip. I dug the creativity of that, but the uncomforting cinematography may be a turn off to some. I also feel like this movie got a bit too balls to the walls crazy at the very end and didn’t really justify going to that place. At first, it’s all about this unsettling cult ran by their creepy, former wrestler, leader who plans to make a snuff film out of the wrestling show and make the unknowing competitors all fight to the death for his cult’s enjoyment. That to me is already effed enough and doesn’t really need or justify adding extra elements in to make it a creepy and cohesive horror movie, but by the end the cult is attempting to open up the gates of hell I guess and let demons roam the earth? And to top that all off, we don’t even get any resolution to any of that! I don’t know, it just felt unnecessarily tossed in at the end to me when it really didn’t need it, but maybe they were just going for the batshit crazy, balls to the walls vibe and wanted the movie to kind of go off the rails in the final moments. With the kind of movie this was just in general, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised at all by that. If this does sound of any interest to you though, it’s available on Shudder and I’m sure you can find it to rent places as well. If you’re a wrestling fan, I say check it out. What could it hurt? We need to support independent film and filmmaker’s projects when we can and from one big time pro wrestling fan to another, I was glad to help out with that. It didn’t necessarily blow me away or break new ground by any means, but it’s kind of neat that there’s a pro wrestling based horror film that exists out there now.
