PSYCHO GOREMAN (2020)
Horror/comedy finds young siblings Mimi (Nita‑Josee Hanna) and her more timid brother Luke (Owen Myre) digging up a powerful alien warlord (Matthew Ninaber) who was buried away here on Earth, a long time ago, after his defeat. As Mimi holds the powerful gem that imprisoned him, she now has complete control over the alien the kids call Psycho Goreman. With a child holding control over a powerful alien warlord, what possibly could go wrong…aside from the assassins sent from space to destroy him, now that he has been unleashed.
Inventive and gory flick is written and directed by Steven Kostanski (co-writer/co-director of The Void). It has the blood spattering and severed limbs of a horror flick, while maintaining the silliness of a kid centric comedy. It reminds one of the bonkers ultra gory Japanese flicks they love to churn out in the Land of the Rising Sun with monsters, outrageous stories, broad comedy and showers of gore. The make-up and bloodletting are all rendered well and the creatures are imaginatively designed, especially “P.G.” Some of the designs evoked Keita Amemiya’s work from his movies. What holds this flick back a bit is that it’s just not as funny as it should have been and they didn’t take as much advantage of the premise as they could have. There are some fun bits, a few laugh out loud moments and the gore is plentiful and inventive, but it just seems like it should have been more consistently amusing. It also drags a bit for a 99 minute movie. There really isn’t enough story for a more than 80-90 minute runtime. The cast are OK, with Matthew Ninaber delivering an amusing performance, from under all that make-up, as a powerful alien warlord being frustratingly forced to adhere to the whims of a bratty child. There is fun to be had, but one feels it could have been more of an outright blast with a wittier script that took complete advantage of the amusing story set-up and a tighter runtime.
-MonsterZero NJ
MonsterZero NJ's Movie Madhouse 