Film, Film Review

REVIEW: Dark Match (2025) dir. Lowell Dean

Bloody flings and gutted rings

by

Dark Match is a typical B-movie grindhouse thriller focused more on aesthetics than thematic interplay or a solid narrative. Following a group of SAW (in place of WWE) wrestlers—Miss Behave (Ayisha Issa), boyfriend Joe Lean (Steven Ogg), and Kate the Great (Sara Canning), amongst others—led by announcer Rusty (Jonathan Cherry), they go to a wrestling gig in a small, middle-of-nowhere town where matches are held in a secret, shadowy den of viewers. Shortly after arriving, the group realizes they’re becoming part of a fatal cultish ritual where five fighters must die as offerings within the ring: “Five deaths in the ring. That’s the thing.” Led by the bulked-up, money-crazed cowboy known only as the Prophet (Chris Jericho), the cult forces the group to endure their trials until one person per match is dead. They fight back, obviously, but to bloodier results with unexpected connections made along the way.

Considering Dark Match is primarily cast with real-world martial artists, boxers, wrestlers, and other athletes—Chris Jericho’s hefty WWE career says all that’s needed—it’s a miracle the film comes together as well as it does. Firstly, the aesthetics are great. Director-writer Lowell Dean and his crew solidify this isolated, primitive tribe with flashing colors across the rainbow, kinetic cinematography, decayed costume, and set designs (in opposition to the fighters’ leathery or skin-tight apparel), and a firm grasp on the grindhouse filmic pace. Watching characters run through camera-twisting corridors of lit blues, reds, and greens is nearly hallucinogenic, as such a murder house almost feels when you’re thrown into it. Plus, the murders are WWE-like theatrical in the best way; crowd chants, in-ring trickery, and creative knockouts (murders) played over an electric-metal mashup score rip your eyes and ears agape. Joe Lean is also coarse throughout—when the camera focuses on him or his and Miss Behave’s dynamic, the fight is more intriguing and the outcome more pressing. Moments of racial and religious interplay appear—”Nothing at all, we’re just excited about the coming of you SAW stars,” a stereotypical redneck group leader says after snickering about Lean and Behave’s respectively white-Black relationship—but they’re either forgotten about later or snuffed out for the fight itself.

And that’s just it—there’s not much else beyond the film’s visual/sonic scopes and (overly) straightforward narrative. Most other actors, from Jericho to Issa, cannot act. They’re either flat-faced and even-toned in when they should be acting or overacting when they shouldn’t even react. Any established themes, aside from Miss Behave’s and Joe Lean’s tumultuous relationship resolved through a throwaway “of course, isn’t that what girlfriends are for?” get tossed or contradicted later. Interesting twists or ideas, like who the Prophet is and how he’s connected to SAW, are either explained away by characters or rug-swept. Anything of substantial value is sour from the oversights and undercuts, severely limiting what could’ve been a surprisingly creative horror-wrestling endeavor to a barebones fun flick. For boxing/wrestling movie fans and WWE-specific fans, you’ll probably get mindless joy from this so long as The Rocky (Balboa) Picture Show isn’t expected. But for anyone else, this is either mindless eye candy and gore or not worth the punch.

Dark Match
2025
dir. Lowell Dean
94 min.

Now streaming on AMC+ and Shudder

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