Dark Match (2025) Movie Review – A fun but flawed slasher

A fun but flawed slasher

Dark Match is one of those unique horror movies that can’t quite decide what sort of direction it wants to go. As a result of this indecisiveness, the film fails to really embrace its premise, ending up as a somewhat underwhelming flick, rather than the rip-roaring guilty pleasure it so easily could have been.

In its simplest form, Dark Match combines the thrills of amateur wrestling with a conventional slasher, complete with a smattering of gore. However, the characters are one-dimensional and the film is full of colloquial wrestling terms that newcomers to the field may be a little lost with. In essence, this is an indie horror for hardcore wrestling fans more than anybody else.

The story centers on a small-time wrestling federation, SAW. They’re eking out a living and while there are talent scouts that show up, they’re mostly interested in the star attraction – Kate the Great. She’s locked in a feud with Miss Behave, a woman desperate for a title shot and fed up with playing second fiddle.

However, the federation strikes gold when they receive a lucrative offer to head off and wrestle a series of dark matches in a rural, backwoods area in the middle of nowhere. A dark match, for those unfamiliar with the term, means a non-televised event, simply there to appease a live audience, who get exclusive content or matches they may not have otherwise received.

So off the small troupe go, unaware that this could very well be the last wrestling match they ever take part in. Led by an enigmatic man named The Prophet, the truth about what this place actually is and what this guy wants, is soon unveiled, much to the shock of everybody involved.

Predictably, Miss Behave (whose real name is Nick) happens to be the protagonist of the movie but she’s quite hard to warm to for the first half of the run-time. She very much plays a stoic, no-nonsense character, she breaks kayfabe regularly (the term for playing your character inside the ring) and she has all the charisma of a wet sponge.

Joining Nick are a bunch of other wrestlers, including manager Rusty, Nick’s partner and former wrestler Joe, a tag team, Kate the Great and a Luchador by the name of Enigma.

To be fair, Nick does come out of her shell toward the mid-point of the movie, but this is also where the focus starts to shift around a lot, as we see more of the various supporting characters. Masked Enigma gets his own little subplot, we see more of the Prophet and Joe’s ties from the past, and all the different wrestlers get their time in the ring.

In fact, the movie is clearly a love letter to wrestling itself, given we see a lot of action inside the squared circle, but mostly with some pretty bizarre gimmicks, including a wind match, a water match and a modified cage match too. These are all shot quite well but the film also adopts a couple of annoying aesthetic tropes that very much give this an amateurish sheen.

A lot of the film is bathed in neon greens and reds, which can obscure some of the facial expressions, especially during dark scenes, while there are dream sequences and flashbacks that adopt rapid cuts and the usual titled camera angles that feel very predictable.

There’s also not a whole lot of horror in this either, and while it’s always good to see Y2J, Chris Jericho is badly miscast as The Prophet. Honestly, this is a role that feels destined for Bray Wyatt, as Jericho doesn’t have that same dangerous allure to play a deranged cultist.

Dark Match isn’t a bad watch though and there are definitely some stand-out moments. The action in-ring is solid and there’s definitely a desire here to be as authentic as possible when it comes to wrestling action. This very much does feel like a minor federation trying to eke out a living and I’d imagine Jericho’s experience wrestling would have helped this tremendously.

However, it’s also a film riddled with issues that are hard to overlook. That’s before mentioning the ending, which concludes everything on a pretty bonkers note and a cliffhanger that’s completely unnecessary too.

All in all, this isn’t a bad way to kill a couple of hours, but unless you’re a die-hard wrestling fan or are a real sucker for slashers, this is probably going to leave you wanting more.

 

Read More: Dark Match Ending Explained


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  • Verdict - 4.5/10
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4.5/10

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