First law of nerdy film: If you invoke the name of the Gygax in your retro throwback practical effects fest, you A) better deliver and B) will automatically win credibility points with the kind of weirdos and wackos who want to spend Friday night guzzling pizza and beer while watching a retro throwback practical effects fest. Or, if you’re Mimi (Hanna) and Luke (Myre) it would probably be pizza and something equal parts CO2, Aspartame, and food coloring while sneaking downstairs to watch a late-night cable access horror show while beaming throw pillows at each other’s heads, zipper side first.
Canadian gonzo funmeister Steven Kostanski takes a more lighthearted (if equally goretastic) trip into weirdness with his follow-up to his 2017 Lovecraft-meets-Carpenter writhing splatterfest The Void. It starts as any good fusion should: from understanding where two genres meet. The classic monster horror often starts with the doomed humans finding an artifact that summons the deadly force. Then again, there’s a whole strain of classic kids’ literature where the children unearth an artifact that connects them with a magical creature that takes them to a world of whimsy and wonder. In the glorious middle ground between those two archetypal stories, PG: Psycho Goreman asks what happens when a couple of kids unearth the tomb of an interstellar force of malice, the Archduke of Nightmares, but also find the mystical gem that both powers his pangalactic rampage and keeps his malevolent majesty in check. Plus Mimi is kind of a brat, so she absolutely loves that she’s got a hideous nightmare at her beck and call, especially when she gets bored and wants someone to play crazy ball with (which basically just involves throwing basketballs at her brother’s bonce). Now redubbed Psycho Goreman (PG for short), the interstellar dictator becomes increasingly irritated by his juvenile captors, while still learning important lessons about family, love, and why it’s OK to like hunky boys.
Just as The Void was a tentacular homage to slimy horror, so PG: Psycho Goreman channels Saturday mornings loaded with Power Rangers reruns, just with the added realization that the creatures were supercool. With a look that blends tokusatsu rubber monster vibes with the fastest-selling high-dollar Spirit Store item (the kind you see in the catalog but can never find), Psycho Goreman is a sugar-toasted corn-syrup-blood treat. There’s a giddy absurdity, much of it balanced between PG’s constant annoyance about being the plaything for puny meat bags, and Mimi’s glee about being able to boss an omnipotent interstellar demon about. Psycho Goreman himself (Ninaber in the impressive rubber suit, growling voice by Vlahos) is her favorite bitey pet, and Hanna dives headlong into the lunacy with an OTT deftness that is astounding for a young actor. The third act sees the comedy given a welcome new infusion of life by Brooks as the kids’ hapless dad, Greg, possibly the most perfect embodiment of incompetent parenting since Randy Marsh. He turns out to be particularly useless when the self-appointed interstellar forces of law and order turn up for the inevitable head-lopping, organ-jerking denouement. Will good triumph over evil? Who cares, when there’s this much chaotic creature fun to be had.
This article appears in January 22 • 2021.
