A documentary about Backyard Wrestling

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

Official Site

 

“HARROWING”- LA Weekly

 

"HHHHH” - Film Threat (????)

 

“SUPERB” - Dark Horizons

 

"UNDENIABLY INSPIRATIONAL" - Los Angeles Times

 

Yahoo Movies Preview

 

Awards: Audience Award for Best Film (2003 Brooklyn Film Festival); Director's Choice Award (2003 Texas Film Festival); Best Lounge Film (2003 Sonoma Film Festival); Best of Fest (2002 Edinburgh International Film Festival)

 

Running Time: 80 minutes

 

Distributor: HIQI Media (theatrical); Image Entertainment (DVD)

 

Production Company: Pure Entertainment

 

Cast: Andrew "The Lizard" Cook, Scar, Bongo, Chaos, Heartless, Nympho, The Retarded Butcher, Sic, Rob Van Dam (introduction), James Weston (all as themselves; though, obviously, most of those are "wrestling names")

 

Cast Notes: (6/25/03) This review over at OffOffOff.com includes what looks like a complete list of the people featured in the movie, which is far longer than what I can list on this page.

 

Director: Paul Hough

 

Premise: This documentary takes the audience behind the houses of normal American (and English) kids to reveal the secret world of "backyard wrestling" where amateurs attempt stunts and matches utilizing the most "extreme" weapons imaginable, such as baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire, buckets of flammable liquid, cacti, cheese graters, razor blades, mousetraps, thumbtacks, staple guns, flourescent lighting tubes, broken light bulbs and broken glass, all played out in a ring often made of barbed wire fencing. The result is real footage of American youths pounding and cutting each other in a bloody fury, causing physical damage and going far beyond (some of) the daredevil stunts of the Jackass guys, like a real life Fight Club.

 

  The excellent 2000 wrestling documentary, Beyond the Mat (directed by Barry Blaustein, who also endorses this film) showed what long-term impact dangerous stunts have on the pros, and this movie's stunts sound even more haphazard.

 

Its not getting a wide release in theatres (mostly major cities) but from the praise its getting, it sounds like it will probably make it to DVD at some point. I really don't know how RVD got involved with it though, but its only apparently for an Intrduction..

[Guest HBK16]

I cant see any good coming out of this. Kinds are going to go home after watching this and do it themselves. Then the lawsuits come into play because we're in America, we can blame everything on movies.

 

 

EDIT: That kid on the main page is scary looking.

[Guest Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye]

Damn, that kid has BOSS upside-down cross carved into his chest and stomach. Plus with all the time he probably spends outside playing with his iron toothbrush, you'd think he would have a tan.

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

...I wish they'd go "fuck it" and release it on DVD already.