Author and director Lowell Dean took his lifelong love {of professional} wrestling and made it into the brand new cult horror film Darkish Match, which is out now on Shudder! Starring Ayisha Issa, Steven Ogg, and Chris Jericho, it is a horror film for wrestling followers, a nostalgic massacre that isn’t afraid to get somewhat nasty.
Within the new wrestling horror movie:
A small-time wrestling firm accepts a well-paying however too-good-to-be-true gig in a backwoods city solely to be taught, too late, that the neighborhood is run by a mysterious cult chief… and their occasion is now a pay-per-view battle to the dying.
We spoke with Issa and Ogg about their lifelong loves of wrestling, bonding over the freezing chilly, and the magic of dwell professional wrestling.
Dread Central: So that you’ve in all probability been requested this query 33,000 occasions, so I apologize, however what had been your familiarities with wrestling earlier than starring in Darkish Match?
Ayisha Issa: To start with, I’d love the truth that you had been like, I do know you’ve been requested this query earlier than, however let’s do it. So I simply recognize the truth that you already know that and it’s completely honest. Generally it seems like I must really feel like I must give you a brand new means of answering it! Nevertheless it’s fairly easy. I used to look at wrestling on Saturday mornings with my cousins. There have been three boys and I used to be the infant. So I used to be simply leaping off the again of the sofa, which was alleged to be the highest row and I used to be simply completely sucked into all of it. Yeah, I might run you off a listing of various wrestler names.
DC: That’s so cool!
AI: I believe that it’s that concept of that physicality and being drawn in by the physicality of it’s what made jujitsu so enticing. I don’t wish to name it the actual model, nevertheless it’s sort of just like the sports activities model of wrestling. I believe it made me very open to the concept.
DC: That’s so cool. And Steven, what about you? What was your relationship with wrestling?
Steven Ogg: Nicely, really, I imply, it’s virtually sort of an unique actually, as a result of lots of people didn’t know that I used to be in the identical room as Ayisha watching wrestling. We grew up collectively. [Laughs]
DC: It’s an unique! [Laughs]
AI: Don’t imagine something he says. Rule primary, rule primary.
No, however the story is analogous. I imply, rising up, I grew up in Calgary with Stampede Wrestling. In order that was my rising up. I went to my five-pin bowling league after which rushed dwelling for Stampede Wrestling. After which once I couldn’t make it, there was all the time the great outdated VHS with the large block colours. I’d file it, so I used to be all the time watching it. So I grew up with it and likewise grew up with the Hart Home because the temple in Calgary. We had Unhealthy Information Allen. Calgary rising up was as white a city as you will discover. It was fantastic when Unhealthy Information Allen, one of many solely Black folks in Calgary at the moment, would present as much as our video games.
So I might see Unhealthy Information Allen at basketball video games and the Cuban murderer and Carrie Brown driving within the limo down Deerfoot Path. Keith Hart, I believe it was junior excessive or highschool, was substitute instructing, and we’d be like, “Ah, wrestling’s faux.” He’s like, “Come right here.” And he’d put us in a determine 4 leg lock. So I grew up with it. It was all the time one thing that I beloved and appreciated, and to at the present time, I nonetheless watch.
DC: I’m watching my first Royal Rumble at my buddy’s home in February. I’m very excited to get into the spectacle of watching wrestling.
SO: I’ve by no means been dwell, which is the weirdest factor I believe.
DC: It seems to be like a lot enjoyable although!
AI: I simply wish to say I’ve been dwell and it’s superior. I counsel you guys do it. Nicely, we did one collectively!
SO: Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s proper.
AI: I’ve been twice. So all of us did one. The entire solid went out as a result of half of our solid had been precise wrestlers and half of our solid was preventing that evening. Folks had been flying out of the ring. It was insane. We had been yelling our heads off.
However then in LA, I received to go see Chris [Jericho] at an AEW present in Los Angeles, which was wild. My eyes had been peeled again with the vitality of the area and I used to be watching with what I had simply discovered about wrestling, superimposing that on what I believed I knew about wrestling. So seeing it with these new eyes, the brand new understanding of what was taking place. I used to be being attentive to different issues, however simply watching how they managed the gang and the way into it they had been and the way protecting the gang was of sure wrestlers. It was actually, actually, actually, actually, actually fascinating. It was a good time. So I counsel you probably have the possibility.
DC: I’ve a buddy who’s a professional wrestler in Maryland the place I dwell, so I must get to one of many exhibits now.
AI: The baby we went to, it was at a legion. Keep in mind that?
SO: Yeah, like a neighborhood middle
AI: 1 / 4 at the very least, or a 3rd of the gang, had been aged, they usually weren’t holding again, which was unimaginable. They had been all about it.
DC: When the 2 of you met, what was it like when the 2 of you met? As a result of you will have a lot superb chemistry and also you clearly have an awesome rapport now. However what was it like when the 2 of you met and began creating the connection between Joe Lean and Miss Behave?
AI: What was the primary scene we shot collectively? Do you bear in mind?
SO: I don’t bear in mind.
DC How way back did you guys shoot Darkish Match, by the best way?
SO: Two years in the past.
DC: Oh, okay. Wow.
SO: I don’t bear in mind final week.
AI: Yeah, identical.
SO: We share wrestling as kids and an incapacity to know time. I imply, I don’t bear in mind the primary assembly or something. It’s usually typically within the make-up trailer or saying hiya. I believe we, or what I recall is the most important bond was over with the intimacy coordinator.
You want intimacy coordinators on set for apparent causes. So we needed to talk about a sure scene, and that scene had modified. So I believe that for me is once I bonded most with you as a result of we had been on the identical web page. We each had the identical concept of what that was about, what we had been going to do, what you’re snug with, and in order that for me type of solidified that is somebody who’s going to be nice to work with. I don’t know when that passed off, however that was definitely like, “Oh, right here’s a wise, humorous particular person.” Every little thing inside that dialog is who Ayisha is, and that’s definitely what the entire expertise was about. It was enjoyable.
AI: Yeah, I positively really feel the identical means. I nonetheless bear in mind us, the 2 of us sitting facet by facet subsequent to one another on this little trailer in minus 30-degree Celsius climate throughout our lunch break.
DC: These little moments are all the time one of the best, bringing you collectively in methods you didn’t anticipate.
SO: All of us bonded over preserving heat and never freezing.
AI: Or the van. All of us bonded over the van being in that van for lengthy durations of time.
SO: I forgot about that, however that was one other good second. I actually loved the 2 characters behind the van after you [Ayisha] had been sleeping. And once more, it was this pretty little intimate second shared between two people who find themselves preserving this relationship sort of secret. However I’d forgotten about that till I noticed the clip. I remembered that these had been the moments that I discovered to be actually fantastic in Darkish Match. They’re simply one other added layer, they usually’re considerably sudden.
AI: I agree, and I believe it does actually symbolize two individuals who deeply look after one another very intimately in a means that no person else does. The one time we see these two characters in that degree of softness is after they’re collectively and alone. Or typically you may sort of catch them after they make eye contact round all people else. You sort of acknowledge that they’ve their very own world taking place on a regular basis. So yeah, I really like that about these two.
DC: That’s why I requested about that bond as a result of, I’m certain it’s on the web page too, however the best way the 2 of you embody that and have that little shorthand with the seems to be, it does actually add that additional intimacy to Darkish Match. There’s a lot we don’t know concerning the two of them, which is nice, and there’s a historical past and you’ll really feel that historical past between the 2 of you.
SO: I’m glad that got here throughout. I do know that that was an necessary layer within the sandwich for me to have this relationship displayed, in order that’s nice. If as an viewers you’re getting that, it’s like you may really feel that concern or care for somebody.
Darkish Match is out now on Shudder.
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