Psycho Goreman (2020) Review

After a game of “crazyball”, Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and her brother Luke (Owen Myre) unearth a glowing, magical amulet in their backyard they unwittingly resurrect an alien destroyer of worlds, who is keen to pick up exactly where he left off. Unfortunately, his dreams of bloody carnage and pain for all are put on hold because whoever controls the amulet controls the alien warlord and Mimi has plans for her new friend which threaten the universe a whole lot less.

Writer/director Steven Kostanski’s sci-fi horror comedy plays out like an unholy marriage of 1990s Saturday morning kids TV show and 1980s practical effects gorefest, complete with wall-to-wall creature work. If that sounds appealing to you then you’ll more than likely be on board with this. If you first instinct is to run screaming from the room at the prospect then most, if not all, of the decisions taken with regards to plot and performances are unlikely to win you over.

As much as the story treads familiar kids adventure territory – and as many times as the four-letter word turns out to be “frig” rather than its more robust cousin – this is clearly not a move for kids. The opening confrontation between Psycho Goreman and a trio of low-level criminals ends with a double decapitation and eternal, eye-liquefying suffering for the guy who manages to hang on to his noggin. Or it would have been eternal but for a clumsy collision and its splattery aftermath as our young heroes run into the planet Gigax’s least tolerant entity.

Anyone who’s aware of Astron-6’s brand of humour will find much to enjoy – or not – here and it’s as close to a reunion as you’ll get, with Adam Brooks, Conor Sweeney and Matthew Kennedy among the cast. You might find Kennedy tricky to spot but he is there and Sweeney turns up in a couple of parts including one of PG’s old crew, who are slightly less receptive to their old boss than he expects.

It’s Brooks who lands the more sizeable role as Greg, Mimi and Luke’s unrelentingly useless dad, a man who has odd ideas about how to cook chicken and is prone to wrist injuries when attempting to wield a shovel. Alexis Hancey puts in a fine performance as Susan, the wife who somehow finds it in her heart to love someone who tests her patience constantly.

The off-world sequences have a touch of Manborg about them, albeit with a more generous budget and for anyone who was a fan of the trailer for Astron-6’s “forthcoming” movie Bio-Cop – that would be me, amongst others – that particular character gets their own origin and wacky subplot here, his bizarre Valentine’s card to Mimi generating one of several laugh out loud moments across the 95-minute run time.

Of course, Psycho Goreman’s announcement to the galaxy of his resurrection attracts both friends and foes – well, mostly foes…well, pretty much all foes – including Pandora, head honcho of sworn enemies the Templars, with whom PG has a particular axe to grind considering they’d enslaved him before he discovered the amulet and escaped their clutches. Pandora is a particularly fine creation, an armour-clad fembot by way of Power Rangers.

Elsewhere, there’s a galactic council of critters watching the proceedings with interest, including a creation in a jar whose eyes are covered by a concerned colleague when a warrior’s death is granted and the proceedings become too gruesome. As with so much of the film, the method by which said warrior’s death is bestowed is both bloody and bloody bonkers.

Gallons of claret is spilled, faces melt, limbs are torn off and bonces are de-atomised but everything is so wilfully OTT that you’ll more than likely spend most of the hyperviolent action sequences chuckling. The whole enterprise is soaked offbeat humour, whether it’s PG casually blowing a bike-riding kid to pieces during a ridiculous montage of the siblings showing off their new companion or having one of the supporting characters transmogrify into a shuffling brain creature which causes almost zero difference in the reactions of those around them.

Some may find the central performance of Hanna difficult to take because, let’s face it, Mimi is quite annoying. Her level of self-confidence is off the charts – referring to herself as “the hecking best” – and she bullies the more genteel Luke to get what she wants. The point is that Mimi is annoying and it’s her unshakeable view of herself as the smartest person in any room that makes her a match for the narcissistic, humility-free Psycho Goreman. This is a film where learning eventually does take place but not so much learning that everyone comes out of it utterly transformed.

Psycho Goreman may play fast and loose with genres and its gleeful, throw everything at the wall approach may annoy just as many as it enchants but there’s no denying the impressive mass of technical expertise on display here. The alien creations and the prosthetics look absolutely wonderful in that tactile way CGI still can’t quite manage to achieve and the fountains of blood will delight those looking for their fix of the red stuff.

Sweet in its own extremely warped way, eye-poppingly violent but still retaining an odd sense of innocence, ending on a note which is triumphant but hilariously doom-laden at the same time, this is a movie I loved to bits. I laughed, then I laughed, then I laughed some more. Watch for the sequence in which Greg is summoned to locate Psycho Goreman by a terrifying vision and needs far more prompting than he should to undertake his quest. It sums up the tone of the piece beautifully.

As an Astron-6 fan, anything connected to that universe always brings a sense of excitement and trepidation and the fear of the (crazy)ball being dropped is always strong. I needn’t have worried here. Psycho Goreman delivers time and time again in terms of crowd-pleasing gore and outrageous jokes. There’s also an important message here: you shouldn’t take your hunky boys for granted. I think that’s what we need to hear in 2021 and beyond.

And if you’re talking Crazyball versus Quidditch, it’s Crazyball for me, hands down. Harry Potter wouldn’t last ten seconds at this game.

STREAMING ON SHUDDER 20 MAY 2021

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