Dark Match director Lowell Dean spoke to ComingSoon about combining pro wrestling with horror in his latest movie. Starring Chris Jericho, Ayisha Issa, Steven Ogg, Sara Canning, Michael Eklund, and Jonathan Cherry, the film begins streaming on Shudder on January 31, 2025.
“A small-time wrestling company accepts a well-paying gig in a backwoods town only to learn, too late, that the community is run by a mysterious cult leader with devious plans for their match,” says the synopsis for Dark Match.
Tyler Treese: Congrats on Dark Match. I had such a fun time watching this film. This takes place in the very fun ‘80s era of pro wrestling. What made you want to explore that? It was really the Wild West there for a while.
Lowell Dean: Yeah, I think just like what you said. It was the Wild West and I’m from the prairies in Canada, and there’s a certain kind of love for wrestling. I mean, in 2025, there’s a love for wrestling everywhere, but I think it’s deep in the bones of the prairies. Things like the Hart family and so on. So I think for me it was also just the heyday of wrestling, and it’s like my childhood. It was the heyday for when I was falling in love with it. So that’s why the eighties.
I’d love to hear what made you fall in love with wrestling? Who were some of your favorites growing up?
Growing up, it was for me it was Junkyard Dog. Dog was like the one that I connected with. I don’t know why. I think you can see a lot of the influence in the Miss Behave character and color and weapon of choice for example. But yeah, I’d say like Ultimate Warrior when I was very young. Hulk Hogan was like the Superman of the wrestling world. So, you know, he was my gateway drug. That was my era of wrestling. And then I kind of fell out of it until I got the idea for this film
That’s really fun. And as you know, pro wrestling has a long history of deathmatches. You get to make actual deathmatches in this film. How is it like just letting loose and designing these super-crazed, over-the-top versions of the death matches that we get to see here?
It was fun, but it was also challenging because this isn’t my first indie film or indie horror. So I’m kind of at the stage where I can’t lie to myself about how hard it’s gonna be to do some of these things. So I was always trying to write not just what I dreamt would be cool, but stuff that no one’s going to force me to take this outta the movie.
And some of them, I’m amazed. Like, I kept waiting for people to say, “we’re not gonna do a fire match. You can’t afford to do a fire match. We have to cut this.” You know. So the fun was in the design of coming up with what would be unique for each of these elements and five matches. And it was actually shockingly easy to come up with a bunch of cool ones, and I had to leave some on the cutting room floor — pun intended — that maybe if there’s a sequel I could throw in.
You mentioned writing within the scope of the film. That’s such a skill, and I thought you did that really well with your other film that was recently released, Die Alone with Carrie-Anne Moss. I wanted to ask you quickly about that. It was such a fun take on zombies. What was most rewarding about that experience?
I mean, the most rewarding thing was just bringing it to life.
Die Alone is something of a passion project for me. I’ve been trying really hard to get it made for basically a decade, and it is more subtle and nuanced and quiet. So when I went to, for example, try and pitch Dark Match, several producers were interested. But with Die Alone, people were like, “so it’s like a zombie movie, but it’s not really a zombie movie, and it’s about sad people in the apocalypse.”
So it was a harder sell for sure, but luckily we got the right people involved. And I mean, obviously the cast is phenomenal. Getting to shoot it in my home of Saskatchewan in summer. All of it. I can’t Lie, Die Alone is was a dream come true project. And I know it’s just getting out there still, but I hope it continues to find an audience because I love it. It’s very different than anything I’ve done. And I think I mentioned the cast, but people like Carrie Ann just crushed it. Carrie-Anne, Douglas Smith, Frank Grillo I think did a great job. Kimberly-Sue Murray, and my friends Amy Matysio and Jonathan Cherry who pop up in all my stuff. It’s just like, it’s a love letter to survival.
You mentioned your Canadian upbringing. You also get a Canadian wrestling legend here. Chris Jericho plays the main villain here, The Prophet. How was it just going back and forth with working with him and getting his ideas and working with Chris?
It was great. I was intimidated at first to work with him because I mean, he is a wrestling superstar. It’s like writing anything for anyone. It’s like if you wrote a piano movie for a piano virtuoso, you’d be like, “Oh, is he gonna think this is garbage?” So I was very afraid that Chris would read it and be like, “What is this garbage?”
But he actually gave me a great compliment, which is like, “I feel like I could have written this. This is like very accurate to the wrestling experience, especially of the time.” So, I mean, he had notes like any expert would in their field, but it was just great working with him. He’s a kind guy. He’s a passionate guy. He’s a hardworking guy. And he came prepared, you know, so he was a dream collaborator.
I saw the actor that played the luchador is also a pro wrestler. How is it using that mixture of traditional actors and wrestlers, especially when it comes to the fight choreography? I assume that that helped a lot having those guys with those backgrounds.
It really did. I mean it was interesting because it’s just like you said, we had to really go character by character and say, almost mathematically, are you a fighter or an actor?
Aisha Issa, who plays Miss Behave, was the one unfortunate character where I was like, “I can’t get a fighter or an actor. I need someone who can do both.” So we had to look really hard to find that rare actor who has a stunt background and training. She has a jiu-jitsu background and everything like that, but with the rest of the cast, we really had to kind of mathematically say, “Where does your strength need to lie?” And just hope and pray that you’re a great actor who maybe can throw a punch or you’re a great wrestler who can deliver a handful of dialogue and have it seem natural.
And, you know, the other thing is wrestlers are good actors. I didn’t know this 10 years ago necessarily. I might have been snobbish about that. But now I’m very open to wrestlers because you look for the personas they’re playing in the ring. They can deliver that in a film. They might even be more practiced than many actors because they’re doing it every night in different cities under weird circumstances.
We had so many people who I think really over-delivered, and this was not an easy film. They had to punish themselves physically, things like doing the Earth match. [In] the Earth match, they’re really fighting on a giant pile of dirt. They’re body slamming, they’re throwing themselves off the ropes in a wrestling match in an evening. They do it once, you know, we do multiple takes in a film. So these guys were doing the most punishing stuff for a whole day.
You brought up Aisha Issa. I did wanna ask about her. She obviously has a martial arts background. She’s always in great shape. She is that dual-threat where she can deliver on both sides, and I’ve seen her in some smaller roles, but it is so refreshing to see her as a lead here. So how is it just really getting to give her something really juicy she could use throughout Dark Match?
I thought it was great. I had a great experience working with her.
I don’t know what she thought going in or what she expected it would be, but I feel like we had a really nice collaboration. I feel like I genuinely wanted her to bring a lot to the character, and call on me if there was things she didn’t like about the character or that felt inauthentic.
But with every actor I work with, I try and say — especially the scripts I’ve written — “I’ve put a lot of thought into this. I really care a lot about your journey and the nuances of who you are. But now I’m handing the character to you and I want you to kick the tires. Like if there’s things that you think are inauthentic or ideas you have, let’s discuss ’em.”
And Aisha was definitely very passionate about elevating the film. Not just like doing “what I say” as a director, but saying, “Why is this happening?” “How is that happening?” And her questioning often led to some pretty cool outcomes.
I love the look of the film. I wanted to ask you about collaborating with cinematographer Karim Hussain. He did great work on Infinity Pool and some other films. How was it really developing the look for this film?
I mean, it was intense. Karim Hussain is, I would say, a genius. He’s a visual genius. He’s not someone who rests on his laurels or his talent. He always wants to try something different and better and experiment.
For that reason, I genuinely think he elevated this film. There’s a version of this film that just kind of looks like expected or stock or hokey. And he approached this like a true artist, and there’s motifs behind things and no shot is done by accident.
Most importantly for me, like we just share a, I think a similar energy and a vibe. So I, I’m someone who likes to over-prepare and not everyone does in film. So it was like meeting your match in a way of finding someone who was kind of as crazy and as obsessive as you were and who you could like, really push yourself to make this the best version of what it is. And, and, you know, this was not an easy film. It’s I’ve never done an easy film, actually. But this was 22 days, and every day was something insane we were taking on. So it wasn’t just like, “Oh, what’s a cool shot for two people talking?” It’s like, “What’s a cool shot that has meaning and purpose and color and originality?” and also we have to do a thousand in the day because we’re doing a fight scene, you know?
You get to create this whole stable of wrestlers, and I feel like that’s a childhood dream of just coming up with a bunch of wrestling personas. How was that process like? Were there a lot of revisions?
You know, I’m gonna say honestly, no, there weren’t a lot of revisions. I had thought about this script so long that I had versions of characters in my head, and then it was just like, “boom.”
I knew little things. Like I knew I wanted the heroes of this film to be the heels. I didn’t wanna do the baby faces. I just kept looking for what are the stock fun characters. I wanted some luchador obviously. Because I had done prior to this film, I was researching amateur wrestling like smaller wrestling companies and how they would set out to do things. So I actually had the benefit of interviewing about a dozen real wrestlers in Saskatchewan.
One of the characters would never tell me his name and he would never remove his mask. And I was doing a real documentary on their lives, and some of the wrestlers are like, “come visit me at work, watch me with my wife and kids.” And this one guy was like, “you will never know anything about me. I will tell you about my life in the ring and you will never know anything.”
I just love that so much. I want a character who is a full mystery, but you know, he’s got heart, right? And Joe was a certain kind of thing and he grew working with Steve Ogg. He got better than what’s on the page. Obviously same, like I said, with Miss Behave and Aisha Issa and the others.
It was like you said, building that fun perfect roster. I need a guy who is very ego driven. So many wrestlers are like, “I’m the best in the world,” and everyone freaks out.
I wanted some creepy looking characters, and I wanted someone who was a nice foil to Miss Behave. So Kate the Great is basically — while everyone’s kind of spitting and throwing stuff at Miss — I wanted the character who walks in the ring and it’s basically like, she’s Supergirl or something. Everyone’s like, they’re bowing down and be like, “you’re our queen.”
So it was just like you said, it was imagination and play and just like coming up with that fun, almost like perfect roster. Like a kid with action figures.
