GRUNT! THE WRESTLING MOVIE

Many futile attempts have been made to adequately describe Grunt: The Wrestling Movie. In the mid-1980s, there was talk of a ‘thin plot’, ‘amateurish production’, ‘too brutal wrestling scenes’, ‘unfunny jokes’ and ‘a general disappointment’. More creative reviews attested to the film's ‘defeat by disqualification’ or proclaimed: ‘If a society can recover from Grunt! then we can achieve anything.’

Yet there are already five words in our language that perfectly describe the film with little effort: the Spinal Tap of wrestling. It tells the story of wrestler ‘Mad Dog’ Joe DeCurso, who accidentally (!) decapitates his opponent in the ring — and then falls into a deep depression and then off a bridge. Or does he? Because when a new face appears in the wrestling world under the mysterious pseudonym ‘The Mask’, speculation begins as to whether the disgraced ‘Mad Dog’ is behind the spandex skin. A cinematic investigation begins. Or does it?