PG: Psycho Goreman Review (Film, 2021)

content warning: gore, blood, foul language, death by suicide (discussed)

A brother and sister discover a glowing structure in their backyard. This is the burial site of an alien overlord and the children have accidentally brought him back to life. Now an intergalactic battle is back on and human lives no longer matter.

PG: Psycho Goreman plays like a cross between a coming of age Spielberg sci-fi story and a splatter film. The titular alien has less empathy and understanding for humanity than Clive Barker’s cenobites. At least those creatures believe they are providing humans with some form of pleasure; this alien has no issue destroying humans in the blink of an eye or sentencing them to a torturous eternal life.

The biggest strength of the film is its pacing. After a brief title scroll, the action never lets up. The film starts with a childhood game of ball edited like a high stakes action film and never lets up. By the fifteen minute mark, we’ve met the alien, seen his powers, and watched as two children wield total control over him by chance.

PG: Psycho Goreman is completely ridiculous. This is a fever dream of creature design, adventure stories, and sci-fi tropes. This is the natural progression of the current style of blockbusters. The world of PG is meant to feel absurd, but it’s not that far removed from box office hits like Transformers or the latest superhero film. This familiarity allows for more extreme gore and effects to feel believable in this story. It’s clever world building through a mix of nostalgia and trends.

The special effects in the film are wonderful. The creature design for all of the aliens is impressive. They’re all built with practical effects, a mix of prosthetic makeup, costuming, and puppetry. The various powers and attacks are CGI with some late 80s/early 90s hand-animated electrical zaps for style. Everything looks great.

The biggest issue with the film is the sound mixing. It is either very loud or very quiet. I found myself adjusting the volume throughout the film. If I didn’t watch with captions, I would have missed key bits of dialogue. It’s a product of the exaggerated nature of the film. The action and scares are meant to be much louder because that’s how this genre typically works. It’s just pushed to such an extreme here that it’s a distraction.

PG: Psycho Goreman is a fun and over the top sci-fi/horror/adventure film. It is everything and nothing you would expect it to be in the best way possible.

PG: Psycho Goreman is streaming on Shudder.