‘Dark Match’ Review: Pro-Wrestling Horror that Delivers Action but Loses Focus

Dark Match has too much going on in the plot, but the fighting is fun.

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Dark Match was released on Shudder on January 31, 2025.

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What is Dark Match About?

Ayisha Issa as Miss Behave in Dark Match (2024).
Ayisha Issa—who plays Nick/Miss Behave—has a background in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Dark Match is a pro-wrestling horror movie filled with violence, gore, and a plethora of plot threads.

Set in the late 1980s, Nick is a pro-wrestler in a small-time independent promotion. Going by the ring name Miss Behave, she is frustrated with the company’s owner and his refusal to promote her as anyone other than a heel (i.e. villain) wrestler who always loses to the promotion’s favored starlet, Kate the Great. Nick is also having nightmares that seem to point towards something evil coming her way. When Nick and her fellow indie wrestlers take a road trip to an isolated community where they’ve been hired to put on a show, she’ll soon come face to face with an evil cult leader who has deadly plans for the night’s wrestling matches.

Dark Match was written and directed by Lowell Dean (Wolfcop). Ayisha Issa (Brick Mansions) stars as Nick/Miss Behave, and she is joined by Steven Ogg (The Walking Dead, Grand Theft Auto 5) as wrestler “Mean” Joe Lean, Jonathan Cherry (House of the Dead) as wrestling promoter Rusty, Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries) as Kate the Great, and current AEW wrestler Chris Jericho (Terrifier 2 & 3) as The Prophet/The Leader.

Dark Match Review

Jonathan Cherry as Rusty in Dark Match (2024).
Rusty (Jonathan Cherry) was surely inspired by the archetype of sleazy pro-wrestling promoters.

There’s fun to be had in Dark Match for fans of pro-wrestling and horror movies. The setup is relatively minimal, which means it gets to the in-ring action fairly quickly (about 35 minutes into a 93-minute movie). The actual wrestling is well done, and the blood flows freely for fans of gore. However, the movie’s story is its weakest point.

The Prophet (Chris Jericho) wears leather straps on his chest reminiscent of Demolition, a tag team from the 1980s into the 1990s.

Dark Match overcomplicates its story. One of the biggest examples of this has to do with the motivation for the group of people putting on the wrestling show. It’s apparent early in the movie that the community Miss Behave and her friends travel to is probably part of a cult. I’ll avoid any big spoilers, but their plans are revealed partway through the plot, and it all makes decent sense for a movie like this. But later, there is another revelation that completely changes what we believe about The Prophet’s motivations for putting wrestlers in fights to the death. Then, even later, that secondary motivation is revealed to be a red herring that has no bearing on how the story ends up. It’s an odd distraction that is completely unnecessary.

Dark Match (2024)
Miss Behave vs. Kate the Great needed to have more importance put on it.

Another example of the story lacking coherent focus involves Miss Behave. The movie opens with Miss Behave taking liberties in the ring with Kate the Great. It sets up a rivalry that transcends the “kayfabe” (essentially, the illusion) of pro-wrestling. It feels like it’s setting up a climactic confrontation between them, but their eventual match happens just over halfway through the movie and is merely one of many plot points. It just doesn’t feel as important as it should given the way it was built up, and it doesn’t provide any particularly dramatic or plot-twisting moments.

Dark Match (2024)
The “dark” in Dark Match refers to multiple ideas. One of those might be the fact that the movie is, visually, an extremely dark movie. You would think an actual pro-wrestling show would at least light the ring well.

There are plenty of other examples as well. There’s something about certain wrestlers being drugged, but it has few real repercussions later on. One of the wrestlers is revealed to have a direct connection to The Prophet, but it changes nothing in how you’d expect the plot to progress. The point I’m trying to make with all of these examples is that there are a lot of plot threads that reach dead ends in Dark Match.

Enigma with broken glass in Dark Match (2024).
For many people, the movie Kickboxer (1989) popularized the idea of fighters using broken glass on their fists, though the truth of the practice actually happening in Muay Thai seems to be more myth than fact. In professional wrestling, ECW had a Taipei Death Match in 1995 that had its wrestlers glue shards of glass to their fists.

So, with all the plot weirdness, the focus of the enjoyment in Dark Match is placed almost exclusively on the action and violence. From that perspective, Dark Match is fun. About half of the movie is dedicated to a series of death matches, each with a different gimmick. Some of the gimmicks are way more interesting than others. For example, there is a “Wind Match” that has a huge fan built into the ring, but the fan doesn’t add much to the action. Much more interesting is the “Earth Match” which has a pile of dirt in the ring, but, more importantly, also has the wrestlers cover their fists in broken glass. Regardless of how much or how little the gimmicks add to the spectacle, the matches are the best part of Dark Match.

Dark Match (2024)
The people putting this show on must have a great ring crew. They have to clean up blood, water, and dirt from the mat between matches. They also have to completely change the boards supporting the mat between a few of the bouts. (Yes, I’m being sarcastic, but as a wrestling fan, I couldn’t help but think about these things.)

The lead characters are also fun to watch. Miss Behave and Mean Joe Lean have something interesting going on between them, and their intertwining stories are good despite the lack of narrative focus going on around them. Chris Jericho is also good in the role of the main bad guy. His character of The Prophet could be any of his heel personas in a real pro-wrestling ring, and it would make sense for him. Jonathan Cherry also does good work as a slimy, greedy wrestling promoter.

Dark Match (2024)
The women’s match should have been the main event.

Dark Match is comparable to watching an actual episode of a wrestling show. There is so much going on that there is little chance you’ll enjoy every part of it, and that’s okay. There are highs and lows, and the story isn’t the best, but as long as you like the wrestlers and the action, then the show will at least be entertaining enough.

Dark Match Rating and Recommendation

Dark Match (2024)
If you like wrestling and horror, Dark Match is worth a look.

Star Rating: 3 out of 5

Dark Match probably won’t convert many new fans to the niche genre of pro-wrestling horror, but for those of us who are into it, the movie is modestly entertaining.

Dark Match is currently streaming on Shudder and AMC+.

Further Reading

Meet The Author

Chris has a degree in film studies at Temple University’s campus in Tokyo, Japan. He is a renowned expert on horror cinema.