Basically a remake of Lucio Fulci’s The New Gladiators, Brandon Slagle’s Arena Wars also forces Death Row inmates to combat on live television in the near future. For this Mahal Empire production, that’s the year 2045 vs. Fulci’s 2072, because let’s not get too crazy.
That TV show is called — surprise! — Arena Wars. Despite being co-hosted by a most grizzled, most hair-dyed Michael Madsen (Mahal Empire’s Death Count), it’s a nationwide smash. But with ratings not what they used to be, one of the rich white men behind it asks, “How do we make death exciting for the masses again?”
The answer involves pitting seven Death Row inmates with QR-code neck tattoos against the show’s seven costumed killers. Sporting names like Meat Wagon, each villain has a concept: Mr. Smiles is a homicidal clown; Master Blaster wields a chainsaw; Cutie Pie, the lone female, slings a mean machete.
Meanwhile, on the prisoners’ side, our hero is former Marine and current innocent man Luke Bender (John Wells, Mahal Empire’s Bermuda Island), who looks like every guy you’ve ever seen wearing a shirt from Tapout and/or Ed Hardy. They progress through seven rooms, like Bruce Lee in Game of Death, only horizontal.
These futuristic bread-and-circus pics number greater than events in the Olympics — summer and winter combined. Unlike most, which are funny only in the ways the filmmakers did not imagine, the script by Slagle (House of Manson) has an actual sense of humor — a Mahal Empire staple. For instance, the opening scene’s titles orient us in “THE BIG FUCKING CITY,” while Madsen comments on one contestant’s grisly fate, “I’d hate to be the underpaid janitor who has to clean that up.”
Brothers Sonny and Michael Mahal’s story hits the basic beats without playing notes to connect them. Thus, fight scenes constitute the bulk, which gets tiresome … unless you’re the kind of person who watches WWE Raw, likely the intended audience anyway. —Rod Lott