In stark contrast to its often-stagnant peers within the increasingly populated pool of content available these days, lies Psycho Goreman, a Canadian sci-fi/horror written and directed by Steven Kostanski and released on Shudder. Kostanski is also responsible for 2016s Lovecraftian-mythos-adjacent, The Void, so if you are on the fence about watching this, you should be swayed by that fact alone. It features children Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and her forgettable brother Luke (Owen Myre) in their adventures with a timeless and gruesome space monster, often referred to in the outer worlds as “The Archduke of Nightmares”.
Plot and Characters
We learn that Mimi is controlling, and often downright mean, to her brother Luke, who begrudgingly and timidly goes along with her increasingly cruel demands. She demands that her brother dig her a hole upon losing a game and whilst digging, Luke uncovers a glowing rock upon a large prison-like tomb. The tomb is opened and out comes Psycho Goreman, or PG for short. PG tells the story of a different alien faction called The Templars, who enslaved his home planet of Gigax. During this period of enslavement, PG finds a glowing rock that gives him great power. He raises an army called The Paladins of Obsidian and the two factions wage war on each other throughout the galaxy until The Templars eventually capture PG and bury him on Earth, right below the yard of Mimi and Luke.
Now, I suppose this is a good time to say that, embarrassingly, I thought this was going to be a kids’ movie. I learned relatively quickly that that was not the case. Early on, Luke knocks over a frozen bum that PG hexed, and his cranium splits open like an egg into a frying pan. They transform their friend Alasdair into a disgrace and abomination of biology. They really mess him up; he goes from a perfectly normal, human child to a spherical, lumbering pile of flesh like it’s absolutely nothing. By this point, we have already seen several of PG’s other victims literally plead for death due to the pain of existence. To think all of those same pain-induced emotions would likely be present in whatever’s left of poor little Alasdair’s brain confirms that this indeed is not a children’s movie, despite the hilariously misleading “PG” nods in some of the cover artwork.
Standout Elements: Costumes and Effects
This film does a whole lot correctly in my book, such as the costumes. PG’s costume reminded me quite a bit of 1952s Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Alasdair character’s lumbering pile of flesh was definitely a neat thing to look at, especially while his seemingly distant parents try to ignore the sight of him around the dinner table. All of the templars and paladins were reminiscent of a space-horror style Power Rangers in terms of their attire, which was super cool, considering how dear to me Power Rangers was. The practical effects are on point, with lots of squirting blood coming from all over the place.
Above all else, I thought the music was the most complementary element of the movie. The music was done by Blitz//Berlin, the same group of composers that did the score for The Void, and I must say they really featured a wide variety of sonic textures for PG. The film opens with a dodgeball-type game, where Mimi and Luke face off against each other with slow-motion diving throws and saves, while the squealing of electric guitars picking super-fast tempo 80s arena rock solos blares in the background. It is absolutely badass. Their sound didn’t stop there; they also featured more traditional sounding orchestral strings and horns during suspenseful parts or dialogue-heavy sections. They even threw in some really classic sounding, 80s-era B-list horror movie synthesized sounds that were present in some of the Italian horrors of that era. Overall, Blitz//Berlin absolutely knocked the music out of the ballpark, something I’m getting happily accustomed to hearing, especially when paired with the writing and directing of Steven Kostanski.
Final Thoughts and Recommendation
You can catch ‘Psycho Goreman’ on Shudder.