American Angels: Baptism of Blood (1989)

Prior to the main feature on the American ANGELS video cassette, there's a lengthy advertisement for a call-in contest, the grand prize of which is a trip to meet the American Angels themselves. That contest expired over twenty years ago, but it's still pretty neat to see that the filmmakers tried to bolster enthusiasm for their movie. In case you haven't guessed, American ANGELS is about the world of women's professional wrestling, which has never really received the enthusiasm it deserves, and sadly, this movie didn't help things. I have some good things to say about it, but what we have here is basically a niche film: if you like it, you'll probably love it, but don't expect the rest of the world to, and don't expect it to make women's wrestling look all that great, either.

The story: Three young women win a spot on America's hottest "wrestling team," the American Angels. En-route to the "Baptism of Blood" show, they will need to train both physically and mentally to match the rigors of the business and the aggressions of the jealous champion (Mimi Lesseos).

This wasn't that big of an issue in 1991, but anyone who's watched THE WRESTLER or BEYOND THE MAT will know that pro wrestling isn't represented very well here: not only are the matches showcased as 100% real, but the wealth supposedly provided by a federation that has to tape shows in an empty auditorium will make marks slap their knees with derisive laughter. With that said, there's nothing fake about the credentials of the performers seen here, most of whom were recruited from real wrestling companies: Luscious Lisa, Magnificent Mimi, and Black Venus aren't well-known names, but they and many of the other performers had professional experience in GLOW, AWA, and LPWA, and their expertise shows. While the wrestling may not be fantastic by everyone's standards, these clearly aren't actresses who are miming pro maneuvers. The end credits list no stunt personnel.

The acting's dreadful. Almost every single performer either under- or overacts embarrassingly, the worst case of which is the supposedly ultra-charismatic promoter (Tray Loren). Nevertheless, I get a kick out of this: you can't be a wrestling fan and not have a certain appreciation for bad acting. What's more, there's a good handful of storyline cheese here to enjoy: love scenes in the middle of the ring, a short wrestler who *lives* under the ring, newbie initiation by cake attack... And then, of course, there are the wrestling matches themselves. Most of these are played surprisingly straight with little exaggeration or deviation from the real deal, for better or worse. There are some good moves here and there, especially from Mimi, but none of the fights are masterpieces. The final match between Mimi and Lisa goes on for sixteen minutes -acceptable in a wrestling show, but definitely overlong for a movie whose other matches aren't longer than a third of that.

The movie was made by the Sebastian family of filmmakers, and when I say they made it, I mean almost every part of it: between four of them, they directed, wrote, starred in (Jan Mackenzie, nee Sebastian, alias Luscious Lisa), produced, and edited it, not to mention providing cinematography, set decoration, and art direction. They've taken this approach to other features, like GATOR BAIT 2: CAJUN JUSTICE, and it supports the notion that this is indeed a very low budget feature (during the supposedly massive show, the bleachers weren't even full, and we're talking pretty darn low budget when you can't even get enough extras to fill a predetermined camera angle). Luckily, the apparent lack of budget helps bring charm to this one. VHS collectors will want to give this one a look, as well B-movie enthusiasts in general.