This post contains mild spoilers for Netflix’s Escape the Undertaker
Wrestling fans have watched The Undertaker retire three times throughout the span of his prestigious career. Often — particularly in the modern era — when someone in the professional circuit retires, viewers expect them to return several years down the road. Still, there was a finality to the last time Taker left his boots in the ring. Mark William Callaway hadn’t broken kayfabe (the wrestling term for maintaining the storyline even outside of the ring for anything camera facing) in the thirty years he was The Undertaker. But that all changed after 2020. Suddenly he was giving the first out of character interviews of his life, and it was clear that the longest-tenured performer in WWE history was out of the ring for good.
Thankfully, Taker has joined a long list of former pro wrestlers who have proven that the end of their in-ring career doesn’t have to be the end of their era. Enter Escape the Undertaker, Netflix’s interactive spookytime adventure featuring The New Day (a tag team featuring Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods, and Big E) as they try to combine their patented power of positivity with the power of the Undertaker’s urn.
In most cases, the interactivity of choose your own adventure storylines comes with the sacrifice of quality. Escape the Undertaker isn’t any different. This is a story-driven towards WWE’s younger audience, so there are plenty of allowances to be made in that sense. However, issues become glaring when it comes to something as simple as Undertaker having a long wig in some scenes, a braid in others, and his actual haircut when he has neither of those styles. In that same vein, kids may not pay as much attention to production design as their parents, but slapping an Undertaker logo on a ritzy (and very bright) Hollywood mansion ain’t it. It will be fun for kids, but it’s also sloppy and features very little to keep the younger generation’s parents engaged with the material. One of the few exceptions here is a call-out to Kane’s (Glenn Thomas Jacobs) former alter ego, Isaac Yankem, DDS. The details of how that situation unfolds are better left for a first viewing, but long-time fans of the sport will get a good chuckle. There are also quite a few scenes featuring old reels of Paul Bearer (Bill Alvin Moody).
Though much of Escape the Undertaker plays as a silly cash grab deal between WWE and Netflix to get whatever piece of the October horror pie they can, the bottom line of the special still hits the way it is intended. The New Day has been one of the best things in professional wrestling since their debut in July of 2014, and their power of positivity gimmick is a strong contributor to that. Kofi, Xavier, and Big E all find themselves forced to confront their greatest fears as they battle to wrest Taker’s power from him, but their friendship helps carry them through to the end. (Provided, of course, that you choose to write the story that way!)
Speaking of fears, parents of little littles need not worry. While there’s plenty of spooky ambiance in Escape the Undertaker, very little of the story is actually frightening. If spiders stress you or your kiddo out, there will be a scene that gives you the jeebies. But that’s about as scary as it gets. Whether that’s because of the choose your own adventure nature of the project, the desired audience, or both, there’s nothing here that’s going out of its way to traumatize viewers. No jump scares at all, either!
Though I can’t say that Escape the Undertaker is “good” in any real sense of the word, it does highlight the fact that the Venn diagram of wrestling and horror fans is far closer to a circle than some may suspect. The Undertaker is the longest-running example given the length of his career, but he’s certainly not the only one. The list of classic wrestlers who played into the macabre isn’t short. Hell, there are plenty of Mick Foley matches that could fall under the umbrella of the torture porn genre, whether the story elements were intended or not. Thumbtacks are gnarly, y’all.
That trend made its way comfortably into contemporary wrestling as well. The Wyatt family (made up of the late Brody Lee, Bray Wyatt, Erick Rowan, Braun Strowman and at one point the likes of Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton) had a long stint through varying levels of popularity from 2012-2017. Strong Wrong Turn vibes from the whole clan. Wyatt would go on to do his own thing, remaining horror-focused, after the rest of the faction broke off into different parts of their career. Alexa Bliss currently carries on the legacy after Bray Wyatt’s unexpected release from WWE. (Yes, you can likely expect him to pop up on AEW soon.)
Finn Balòr’s alter ego is a demon, the Riott Squad frequently feature strong horror tie-ins with their costumes, Foley’s Mankind… the list goes on. There’s even a film called Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies that features a long list of well-known favorites, including Rowdy Roddy Piper, Kurt Angle, Shane Douglas, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and more. That film’s production value is about as strong as Escape the Undertaker, but you take what you can get!
Escape the Undertaker isn’t winning any awards and it’s unlikely to wow any adult wrestling fans, but it still has plenty of potential to be what gets a New Day fan into horror for the first time. The same could be said for young horror aficionados who might want to dig more into professional wrestling after getting a taste of it in the Netflix series. Sometimes, being neither great nor memorable to an adult doesn’t matter when it comes to a children’s series cultural footprint. Wrestling and horror fans alike will all get the film buzzing in Netflix’s top 10 within the first day of its release. It won’t remain there long — because very few things ever do — but it could easily bring a lifer into either or both fandoms.
You can call it both imperfect and messy. You’d be right on both points. But there’s just no denying exactly who Escape the Undertaker is for. In that bare minimum sense, I have a certain level of respect for it. I hope the choose your own adventure flick can be what turns professional wrestling into some ten-year-old’s Scooby Doo or Goosebumps.
Escape the Undertaker streams exclusively on Netflix October 5, 2021.
