Australian horror filmmaker Michael Philippou has never been shy about pushing limits, but this weekend he literally went headfirst into them. The co-director of Talk to Me and Bring Her Back found himself in the middle of an Exploding Barbed Wire Rope Deathmatch in Pachuca, Mexico on September 20. And yeah, it was exactly as unhinged as it sounds.
Philippou, who’s currently working on a documentary about the blood-soaked subculture of deathmatch wrestling with his twin brother Danny, decided to get a little too close to the action. In a clip posted to Instagram, the director can be seen being launched from a high platform, crashing through a pane of glass, and landing in a net made entirely of barbed wire. He cleared up any doubts in the caption: “Yes that net is made of barbed wire.” He later reassured fans in another post, bloodied but smiling, “I’m cleaned up and ok everyone. I love you Mexico.”
The match was part of the Mexican Rush show, co-promoted by Game Changer Wrestling and Vanguardia Lucha Libre, and it delivered every wild prop you’d expect, from junkyard cars, thumbtacks, glass, and barbed wire bats. Basically, a horror director’s dream set design. For Philippou, it wasn’t just a stunt. He’s diving deep into the world of deathmatch wrestling for his next project, calling it “extreme performance art with glass, barbed wire, thumbtacks.” The brothers explained earlier this year that they had been filming between Talk to Me and Bring Her Back and expect the documentary to drop early next year.
Of course, not everyone’s buying the “art” angle. Former WWE and TNA Women’s Champion Gail Kim didn’t hold back, blasting the footage on X: “This is pure trash. Say you don’t know how to storytell without saying it.” When fans defended the style, she doubled down: “You call this art? lol. Ok. So if one of them died, people would be saying this is art?” Her criticism sparked a fiery debate online, with some fans agreeing the violence went too far, while others praised the dedication and spectacle.
Fan reactions were all over the place. One user wrote, “Nahhhh at one point it gets too much. This is way too much,” while another asked, “Why is this necessary!?” On the flip side, some admired Philippou’s commitment. “From horror films to hardcore wrestling really? Michael Philippou is living a wild double life,” one fan observed. Another seemed to come away with a newfound respect for wrestlers, wondering, “How do wrestlers even recover from stunts like that?”
For the Philippous, though, this world isn’t new. “We used to do two things when we were little—make movies and do backyard wrestling—which quickly turned into deathmatch wrestling,” Michael told The Guardian earlier this year. That childhood obsession clearly never left. And considering their horror track record (I mean, Talk to Me (2022) left audiences rattled, and Bring Her Back (2024) cemented their reputation as rising genre icons), it’s not hard to imagine the documentary hitting with the same intensity.
Michael’s bloody cameo in Mexico was as much research as it was spectacle. Love it or hate it, the stunt showed he’s not just documenting deathmatch wrestling from the sidelines. One thing’s pretty clear: when the Philippou brothers release their documentary, it won’t be for the faint of heart.
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