TheDenizen talks Big Muscles and Body Slams

Early Happy New Year, fellow ninjas.

It's been a few months but TheDenizen is back from the wilderness to serve up the goods on some more awesomely bad flicks.

Today I'm going to review a selection of wrestling movies. Pro wrestling is something that most of us like, even if it isn't really accepted by mainstream culture (I know it has had it's heydays, but it's definitely on a long downswing at the moment). Wrestling is generally seen as a niche interest of rednecks and trailer trash, and any references to it are usually mocking in tone. It's considered low brow, low budget entertainment.

It's not surprising then, that most wrestling films are cheap, low budget affairs made for the grindhouse market. They're also usually from Mexico or Japan (where the purists know the best pro wrestling is anyways)...there were dozens of movies starring Mexican luchador Santo in the 60s and 70s. Anyways, here's a handful of capsule reviews for some of my favorite wrestling flicks.

Calamari Wrestler - Cheesy wrasslin action from Japan, this one is a pretty formulaic underdog/sports movie kinda like Rocky, with the catch that the main character is a guy in a big, fake looking rubber squid costume. All the other actors treat him as though he were a real giant squid, and ignore the inherent strangeness of it. Very dry humor as the whole cast just plays every scene completely straight faced opposite a massive cephalopod. Hilarious.

Enter Zombie King - Gloriously campy lucha libre flick from Canada that features a group of technicos led by Ulysses fighting against evil rudo Zombie King and his undead hordes. Pretty much everyone in the movie wears a wrestling mask at all times, and Ulysses is constantly spouting ridiculous nonsense philosophies. It's got hot chicks, a great surf soundtrack, a Jim Neidhart cameo, and tons of dudes beating up zombies with snapmares and huracanranas. You could do a lot worse.

The Wrestler - Despite being a low budget indy film, this movie is the exception in that it's a serious drama about a washed up pro wrestler, and not just some schlocky junk. This is a really great flick and Mickey Rourke gives an amazing performance as the pathetic and broken down Randy the Ram. It won awards and deservedly revitalized his career. Some of the overwrought emotional stuff with the daughter came off as a little hokey, but it's just a crushing experience. Every pro wrestling fan should see it.

Oh! My Zombie Mermaid - Real life grappler Shinya Hashimoto stars as a pro wrestler whose wife is severely injured in an explosion and begins to transform into a mermaid. Unable to pay the medical bills, he is forced to accept a big money death match against a faction of rogue killer wrestlers called DDD. The first half hour or so is just set up but the last hour is solid insanely over the top wrestling action in a series of escalating battles. It's like a bad anime come to life, in a good way.

3 Dev Adam - Granted, this film is only tangentially related to wrestling, but it's such a great flick I relish any opportunity to talk about it. It's a Turkish superhero film in which knockoff versions of Captain America and the famous luchador Santo are brought in by Turkish police to help them stop evil knockoff Spiderman who is on a terrible crime spree. It's seriously insane watching a paunchy Spiderman climb up a drainpipe and stab a woman to death in the shower. Spidey terrorizes people with hungry gerbils. A woman gets killed with an outboard motor in the first minute. If you haven't seen this flick, find it. It's gold.

There's a bunch of other wrestling flicks to be had as well...I've got a few of the authentic Santo films on my "to-watch" pile. Plus there's a Japanese film called Rikidozan, a biopic about pioneering Korean wrestling star of the same name that is excellent by most accounts. And if you can stomach Jack Black's particular brand of "humor", I suppose Nacho Libre is a technically a lucha film too. Of course there's also Hulk Hogan's terrible movies, but other than No Holds Barred, his movies weren't really about wrestling anyways.

Happy viewing.