SILLY, CORNBALL FUN
Psycho Goreman is a nostalgic slimefest oozing with plenty of blood and aliens
Was it really almost 10 years ago that I reviewed writer-director Steven Kostanski's Manborg, a delirious send-up of cheesy '80s science-fiction? And a mere four since he made The Void, a rather less successful take on hospital horror thrillers?
Well, the special effects makeup artist turned full-on filmmaker is back with Psycho Goreman, which looks like the kind of space opera/bloodfest you'd have watched on TV on a rainy afternoon in 1986.
In that world, it would have been followed by a short-lived, weirdly earnest Saturday-morning series about a race of alien overlords and their human kid allies, spawned a line of action figures that would be worth a mint if only you hadn't played with them, and now be forgotten by all but a few rabid fans still spouting the catchphrases. “I will bathe in your blood!”
So if you feel like a nostalgia trip for something that never existed, Psycho Goreman may be just your thing. The thing in question is played by Matthew Ninaber in a rubberized suit. After trying to take over the planet Gigax (all the best worlds have an X in their names), he was imprisoned here on Earth, which was deemed suitably out of the way.
That is, until brother and sister Luke and Mimi (Nita-josee Hanna, Owen Myre) dig him up in the back yard.
He calls himself the Archduke of Nightmares. Mimi (who wins the overacting battle against her sibling, hands down) names him Psycho Goreman instead. PG for short.
Kostanski populates his film with an impressive array of aliens, lovingly crafted out of practical prosthetics and oodles of slime. It's not quite the equal of Manborg, but it is silly, cornball fun. If you can't catch it in cinemas, try videotaping it from a streaming service and watching the VHS copy. It'll give it just the right grain.