Hell Comes to Frogtown, I Like to Hurt People, Grunt: The Wrestling Movie

It has been a spell since I logged an ‘intentionally bad gifted movie’ entry. For newer readers here, my buddy Matt and I have a long tradition of gifting each other bad movies for Christmas and birthdays, and it least gives me something to rag on here about. Past entries here meeting this bad gift criteria consist of my coverage for Bounty Hunters, Hercules: Reborn and The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2. We have eased up on it this past year or two, but I still have a few sitting in the backlog box and will be covering a video today that is a three-for-one on a disc special titled ‘Wrestling Superstars Triple Feature’. Now we all may be familiar with WWE pushing wrestlers in its movie division going back 16 years, but wrestlers have been in bad straight-to-video films long before that and this disc features 1988’s Hell Comes to Frogtown (trailer), 1985’s I Like to Hurt People (trailer), and 1985’s Grunt: The Wrestling Movie (trailer).

I originally watched Hell Comes to Frogtown with Matt on one of our ritual bad movie nights several years ago. It stars Roddy Piper as Sam Hell, fresh off his success in John Carpenter’s They Live. This is a cracked out post-apocalyptic movie where nuclear fallout radiation makes Hell one of the last few non-sterile males. The government discovers him and makes him a deal against his will to contract him to…..traverse the nuclear wastes and impregnate as many women as possible in order to restore the dwindling human population….seriously. The movie tries to not make Hell come off as a creepy serial rapist by having Piper deliver some meek attempts at sympathy and breaking prisoners out of a gang’s Road Warrior-esque facility. This is ridiculously bad, but in a 80s campy-fun sort of way so if you are into so-bad-they-are-good movies, especially two brew-skis in, then Hell Comes to Frogtown will not disappoint.

I Like to Hurt People is a unique beast. It barely comes off as a motion picture and feels more like something I would make if I was a young proactive filmmaker in my teens and decided to make a movie about wrestling and had no idea about assembling a cohesive plot whatsoever. That is essentially I Like to Hurt People which shows several condensed matches interspersed with backstage interviews, TV production staff losing it while trying to keep the wrestlers in check and fans being interviewed outside the ring who are all hyped up for a night at the wrasslin’ matches. I love the geriatric 80s rock soundtrack that plays nearly nonstop throughout the film that brought back fond memories of Miami Connection’s mesmerizing score. 80s NWA/Crockett fans will get a thrill with the nonstop cameos featuring stars like Terry Funk, Dusty Rhodes, The Sheik, Dick the Bruiser, Abdullah the Butcher and Andre the Giant.

A controversial non-finish in the main event between Dick the Bruiser and The Sheik is followed up with an interview in the car with Sheik and his manager the Grand Wizard, where Wizard promises revenge in a cage match....and then I Like to Hurt People promptly ends. Again, this does not feel like a complete movie and is difficult to properly judge as a whole, but that aside it was fun to take in and get a dose of the fervor of southern mid-80s wrestling fandom that I Like to Hurt People encapsulates to a T.

While I Like to Hurt People feels like what my first wrestling movie would be like with barely any filmmaking under my belt, Grunt: The Wrestling Movie feels like what my third or fourth wrestling-adjacent film would be like if I got full of myself and would conjure up a silly Disaster Artist-esque plot over a weekend I thought would be a masterpiece, but instead was nonstop bonkers. There is a crazy 1979 flashback backstory in the opening minutes explaining why controversial wrestler ‘Mad Dog Joe’ was thought to have committed suicide after decapitating an opponent in a title defense. Fast forward six years later when the promotion’s management finally decide to vacate Joe’s title and hold a battle royal to crown a new champion.

The film then follows a documentary crew who are obsessed that Joe is still alive and will return at the battle royal. Lots of shenanigans ensue as the documentary crew interviews multiple people who harass them and turn them away, with a standout scene transpiring at a hot-button, public access political talk show. Eventually everything culminates at the battle royal, but nothing can save this train wreck. Grunt: The Wrestling Movie takes itself way too seriously, and is not even campy-cheesy-bad, but instead the undesirable straight-up-bad. Avoid this one in the DVD bargain bin at all costs.

As a whole, Wrestling Superstars Triple Feature is a semi-decent package, which is glowing praise when compared to this DVD’s cover art! Hell Comes to Frogtown is prime cheesy bad movie night material and I Like to Hurt People is something I would throw in to have on in the background with fellow wrestling fans. Grunt is a complete waste, but as the old adage goes, two out of three isn’t bad!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

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12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Merry Friggin Christmas
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Not for Resale
Pulp Fiction
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Slacker
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Sully
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past