Budget: $670,000 US
Directed By: Steven Konstanski
Have you ever wondered to yourself, what would power rangers mixed with David Cronenburg to a banging heavy metal/synthwave soundtrack film with neon colouring be like?
Well think no more Psycho Goreman is here to answer and possibly satiate that hunger.
Made for 670k US or 850k CA dollars it's amazing to see only 50k (CA) of that went into the special effects of this film.
Do things sometimes look rubberised and floppy? of course they do but that all adds to the charm of the film.
Now I do have a confession to make I tried to watch this film once before only got about 20 minutes in and I hated it, not one likable character to route for everyone was despicable in some way.
I genuinely must have been in the wrong mindset for this film. I listened to my friend about giving a bit of time and to actually accept there's no nice main character in this film then gave it a second go, i'm glad I did.
Now yes you heard me right it does take a little while to get going in this film but when it does it's one hell of a funny joyride. I loved parts where sometimes Goreman will go off on a spiel about some things he's done and they either don't listen to it or interrupt him.
So a frightfully unlikable girl (Mimi) is playing a made up game called crazy ball with her brother (Luke) who is a simpering boy who does everything she says. She bullies him quite a bit, this annoyed the hell out of me first time I went to watched this but I kind of accepted it as that was what it was meant to be, a dysfunctional family.
They end up finding something strange sealed with a mysterious pinky/purple gem, Mimi takes the gem and the kids go inside. That night a newly freed Goreman goes to an abandoned shoe factory where some lowlifes are hanging out. They stupidly start on him and he horrifically yet amusing kills them in a variety of gory ways.
The kids find him the next day and Mimi realises she can control him with the stone, he explains his situation that he was a slave on a planet called Gigax and then found the stone and did an uprising vs the controlling Templars faction. Except he didn't stop there he was consumed with rage and went on a killing spree, the Templars eventually caught him and imprisoned him.
It gets a little slow for a while as the kids question him about things then try to name him something better than his real name. It's amusing that he changes one of their friends into a big brain with eyeballs and no-one seems to care. As for the rest of the family, the mother freaks out about PG, but their loser father seems strangely okay with the 'new friend'. Again amusing as Mimi is saying he won't kill them, but PG (they shortened Psycho Goreman to PG) keeps contradicting her saying he'd flay them alive if she didn't have control over him.
The last Templar catches wind the PG has escaped their imprisonment, despite seemingly being the good guys in PG's story it's pretty clear that they are just the lesser of two evils too. They leave PG in the shoe factory with a TV which he uses to communicate with his ex-lieutenants to come help him retrieve the stone from Mimi. From here on out lots of cool fights ensue and one of the most funniest bits of the film involving a melted face police officer.
I won't spoil anymore other than to say a plot point heavily leaned on in the film comes into play near the end.
THN really ended up enjoying Psycho Goreman a lot, we give Psycho Goreman 2020 A strong 4 out of 5 stars, just give it a chance past the 15-20 minute mark.
