Glopola for the soul — ‘PG: Psycho Goreman’ (film review)
If you’re going to put anyone in charge of a demonic alien who talks like a character from a Robert E. Howard story, hellbent on destroying the planet, a precocious pre-teen with eyes for hunky boys and a knack for making up the rules for her own version of dodgeball may not be the safest bet for the future of life on earth.
I’m talking about the new horror comedy that’s got a slant for quirkiness to the tune of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension meets The Toxic Avenger, director Steve Kostanski’s PG: Psycho Goreman. Ultimately a twisted take on Steven Spielberg’s E.T. but instead of a friendly pet alien with glowing fingers who only wants to get off this planet, Psycho Goreman is the story of Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and her brother Luke (Owen Myre) when they discover that the Archduke of Nightmares from the planet Gigax has been buried in their backyard for thousands of years with a pent up bloodlust for planetary annihilation.
After losing a match of Crazyball, Luke comes across a mysterious glowing pink gem attached to a vault while digging a hole Mimi plans to bury him in. The two youngsters crack the vault’s code unleashing the orc-ish, purply alien monster they eventually name Psycho Goreman (Matthew Ninaber) — PG for short — who possesses powers to invade dreams, force his victims to live forever frozen in unrelenting agony, and transform annoying hunky boys into giant walking brains. But as long as Mimi is in control of the Geminia One stone, PG is obediently at her beck and call.
The overseeing Planetary Alliance is on the verge of an apocalyptic conniption when they discover the Archduke of Nightmares has been unleashed. But none of them have a bigger bone to pick with PG than chief Templar — the angelic, Japanese mecha styled race that enslaved and imprisoned PG — Pandora. Don’t let her appearance fool you, she hates everyone as much as PG does.
And when it comes to movies with multiple alien species sitting around a conference table deciding the fate of the universe, well, there just aren’t enough as far as I’m concerned. And what few movies out there that do showcase killer aliens shaking their fists in unison at puny planet Earth these days lean pretty heavily on digital rubber. But where those movies fail, Kostanski — who has a background in effects makeup — does things the fun way, and delivers the goods, up to and including a choreographed showdown against the Paladins of Obsidian in full-blown rubber, food dye, Caro syrup, and KY jelly, winning me over by shamelessly showing it by the gallons in all of its goop-o-rama glory.
After a fate-altering game of Crazyball in the final act that ends up in a bloody showdown between PG and Pandora, the earth still faces annihilation even after PG confesses to Mimi and her family that he knows “true power comes from within…the power of love.” The family is spared, but PG sets off to begin a new age of chaos.
Finally, the film’s strange, and slightly ineffective message is revealed, calling back to earlier in the film when Luke asks his father if monsters are real, to which he responds, “In a lot of ways, humans are the real monsters.” And in this case, it’s specifically Mimi, not to mention the other ways the film shows humans disappointing one another. The film’s monsters almost seem like bystanders with their own agenda that never depends either way on the kindness of humans. So the humans are the earth monsters who try to stop the space monsters from destroying the world but who end up destroying the world anyway, so it’s not real clear what we’re supposed to walk away with here, but it seems to fall in line with the film’s overall dry, idiotic weirdness. And if you want, there could be a subtext for the trials of adolescence, but honestly this movie never necessarily demands to be taken too seriously, and does what I love best: going the distance to entertain.
Goopy effects and quirky humor steal the show, but the over-the-top performances specifically from Nita-Josee Hanna, Adam Brooks, and Matthew Ninaber, and writing that straddles the narrow realm between stupidity and brilliance make Psycho Goreman fun for the whole family, but maybe not every family.
Four stars.
(Available now on home video in standard and Hunky Boy editions.)
