The Psycho You Know

Remember when you were a little kid and you got so out-of-your-mind angry that you couldn’t even string together a proper threat, so you’d end up screaming something like, “I’M GONNA PUNCH YOUR STUPID EYES OFF YOUR STUPID UGLY FART-FACE!!!” You know, that blind kiddie rage reserved for older siblings who steal your freezies or bullies that throw your G.I. Joe men on the school roof.

I’m reminded of those moments of mind-melting savagery when I look at the cover for Psycho Kickboxer, for an obvious reason: some dude is literally getting his head kicked off! Clean off, like a soccer ball!! And look at all the blood ejaculating from the neck!!! Ha!

I absolutely love this DVD cover; it’s over-the-top-ness makes me smile every time I see it, and not just because cartoon violence is hilarious in general, but also because there is no better image to illustrate the title of this movie. Nothing – absolutely nothing – screams “Psycho Kickboxer” like a kickboxer decapitating someone… with a kick. So simple, yet so effective. And way cooler than guillotine boots! (Whatever those are.)

I’ve become downright obsessed with the cover for Shock-O-Rama’s Psycho Kickboxer DVD. For starters, the victim: what did he do to get his melon punted off his shoulders like that? Was he responsible for killing the kickboxer’s loved ones, what the back of the box cover describes as, “the brutal murder of his father and fiancée?”

Or was that the guy who stole the kickboxer’s shirt?

Hell, the grey cartoon cityscape in the background tells us this is an urban tale, so maybe this victim simply walked up to the psycho kickboxer – apparently mistaking the masked man with the crazy eyes for a regular kickboxer – and asked, “Hey buddy, I’m new in town, can you tell me where to find the Greyhound stat–”

CRACK! No more head. Next time buy a map, dumb-ass.

Then there’s the explosion behind the psycho kickboxer. At first I thought it was fire, but on closer inspection it seems to be lava or orange liquid. Either it’s a visual metaphor for the eruption of action in the film, or, maybe, it’s the explosion that results when the psycho kickboxer fires off his deadly, cranium-removing leg, breaking the sound barrier in the process and spilling a can of Orange Crush. Jury’s still out on that one.

Lastly, there’s the otherworldy glow around the psycho kickboxer. Most likely he’s standing under a really powerful streetlight with a really soft glow. But I like to think there’s actually an alien spaceship hovering over him. Maybe one day the psycho kickboxer was walking down the street, minding his own psycho kickboxer business, when a UFO appeared and the aliens inside it said, “Earthling, we are here to destroy your entire planet unless you can prove the worth of all of humanity by kicking the head off of the next person who walks near you.” It would be the decapitation heard ‘round the world in that case.

The thing is, though, I’ll never really know the answer to these questions because I don’t plan on watching Psycho Kickboxer. There’s simply no way that the actual movie can live up to the DVD cover. If it could, it’d be a cult classic, perhaps in league with gore comedies like Dead Alive or Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, but I’ve read reviews of it, and the consensus is that you shouldn’t even attempt to watch it sober.

The fact that it stars “5 time world kickboxing champion Curtis Bush” isn’t going to sway me; nor is the cover quote taken from the IMDb (“Blood and gore galore”); and not even the inclusion of a second feature, Canvas of Blood, will do it. Admittedly, I’m tempted by the back cover text, though, which promises an “odyssey of vengeance,” a “skull-crushing killing machine” and “an army of inner-city assassins.”

But sometimes the movie in your mind can only be irrevocably ruined if you venture past the cover image. For me, Psycho Kickboxer is like the glowing briefcase in Pulp Fiction – knowing what’s inside would only ruin it.

-Dave Alexander