Years before WWE started producing horror films showcasing their stars as villains, a regional horror flick gave us the MASKED MUTILATOR finally on Blu-ray from Severin Films.

In 1994, a group home in Morgan County run by Vic Mangino (Jeff Sibbach), a former wrestler known as "The Masked Mutilator" who accidentally killed a competitor in the ring, as the sight of a number of murders and disappearances. Mangino rules over his charges with an iron fist and is displeased when the social worker assigned to his house imposes child psychology major Steve Carter (Brick Bronsky, SGT. KABUKIMAN N.Y.P.D.) on him as an intern while also further overcrowding the house with new kid Brian (Tom Taylor). Carter's by-the-book criticisms of Mangino's methods do not endear him, particularly when it comes to metal punk "Rocker" (Glenn Hetrick, SIXTEEN TONGUES) who has been banished to "The Cell" for forty-eight hours after a fight with roommate Greg (Andrew Denzel) who is obsessively protective of his sister Leslie (Heidi Shelhamer), pulling out the nun chucks to warn new roommate Brian away from her. Also in the house are wrestling hopeful Mason (Chet Cole), stoner Jake (Paul Sutt, ANAMORPH), and nymphomaniac Marcy (Amanda Kupchinsky) – who puts the moves on Vic, Greg, Brian, and Jake – as well as cook Carl (Doug Yasinsky) who derives amusement from the punishments Vic doles out on his charges. No sooner do Steve and Brian settle in than someone puts on Vic's "Masked Mutilator" garb and starts stalking and pulverizing the kids. Steve is incredulous when Vic insists that the missing kids must have just run off, but the one person who tries to contact the police gets the sleeper hold to end all.

The wrestler-slasher hybrid subgenre is not very big, with only the 2006 film WRESTLEMANIAC coming to mind. Shot in 16mm in 1994 but unfinished until 2019 when new wraparound footage was shot by Nick Lallo featuring an adult Taylor, MASKED MUTILATOR is very run-of-the-mill when it comes to the stalk and slash aspects but it works because it is refreshingly free of the post-SCREAM hipness to the genre, offering instead a straightforward story where even the nastier characters are reasonably sympathetic. The gore effects consist mainly of splattered blood and some severed limbs but they get the job done while the 16mm photography is neither overly slick nor amateurish (the score, on the other hand, sounds divorced from the era of the film's production). Much more impressive are the actual fight scenes between actors with professional wrestling and martial arts experience. The blows and kicks look incredibly convincing with perhaps some unintentional comedy coming from the way in which the fighters seem to help each other set up body slams and other maneuvers (especially after having one of the fighter characters confirm that most of professional wrestling is fake). The framing story is problematic in spoiling the fact that one of the protagonists does survive but also means that the killer has a flashback within someone else's flashback. The short-ish film is too scattered to make any serious statements about the conditions of group homes and the effect they have on their residents, which makes the end credits sequence all the more surprising with each of the kid's to-the-camera actually quite moving statements about the abuse and neglect they suffered before ending up in care providing some needed depth to the characters. Actors Hetrick and Sutt also created the film's make-up effects and would go onto mainstream careers in the field. CABIN FEVER's James DeBello has a small role in a flashback predating his first feature film role in AMERICAN PIE by five years. Director Jeff Beltzner is also actor Brick Bronsky who was a professional wrestler before embarking on an acting career which included leads in Troma films and a supporting bit in Jean Claude Van Damme's THE QUEST.

It is hard to complain about Severin's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray presentation, what with the HD framing footage looking clean and crisp while the 16mm footage sat in a garage for twenty-odd years seemingly well cared for. The well-lit scenes look fine while some more moodily lit sequences lose detail in the shadows and the focus may have just been slightly off in the gel-lit limb sawing sequence. No complaints about the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo soundtrack with its mix of "vintage" production dialogue and more modern foley and music. Optional English SDH subtitles are included.

The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by writer Dale Schneck, actors Taylor, Sutt, Steve Mittman – who plays the podcast host in the framing footage – and Jim “The Tank” Dorsey who appears in the epilogue. Schneck reveals that the reason the film was not finished was because they ran out of money and he was also dissatisfied with the ending with podcast producer Mittman suggesting the framing device when Schneck wanted to finish the film. Taylor chimes in on the casting and production since he and the other actors were cast through a modeling agency, and they were involved behind the scenes including his discovery of the location they would use for the interior of the group home while Sutt also discusses the film's make-up effects and how he would form a partnership with Hetrick. Taylor also reveals that some footage had been shot two years later from the original production requiring a workaround as to why he had longer hair (and needed to keep it for the project he was working on at the time). Actors Bronsky and Sibbach were wrestling partners before Bronsky decided to pursue acting, and the cast and crew also reveal that Bronsky used some wrestling choreography terms in his direction of the actors.