Immortal Combat

HISTORY’S GREATEST WARRIORS… ON A SHOESTRING: THE CHAOTIC SAGA OF IMMORTAL COMBAT (2026)

Think Mortal Kombat II… then swap the nine-figure budget for loose change from between the couch cushions. Immortal Combat is The Asylum’s gloriously shameless mockbuster: tiny budget, big ambitions, and enough behind-the-scenes oddities to fill a whole tournament bracket.

BLOODSPORT BY DESIGN: HOW THE MOCKBUSTER GOT GREENLIT

• The film comes from The Asylum, the B-movie factory behind Sharknado, known for cranking out “mockbusters” timed to ride the marketing wave of major releases.
• In 2026, their target was Mortal Kombat II—so Immortal Combat hits digital right around the same time, with a nearly identical “legendary warriors fight to the death” setup.
• Reviewers openly frame it as the studio’s classic playbook: someone sees a big IP on the horizon, asks “What can we pump out in a hot minute to piggyback on that movie’s marketing?” and boom—Joan of Arc is suddenly in a death tournament.

CAST OF LEGENDS (AND VERY REAL PAYCHECKS): WHO STEPPED INTO THE ARENA

• The film is directed by Monroe Robertson, a British author-turned-director who previously made the disaster flick Planetquake (2024). Critics note he’s clearly working from the Asylum low-budget toolbox: few locations, small cast, maximum chaos.
• Dominique Swain plays Aria, the exposition-spewing handler who ushers viewers into the tournament. She’s the recognizable face on the poster, the one used prominently in marketing and trailers.
• The actual fighters’ lineup is surprisingly ambitious:
• Eve Fournier as Joan of Arc – reviewers say the entire film leans heavily on her, and note it as a notable early role for her.

Roxanne G.C. Brooks as Cleopatra

Mila Orion as Boudica

Jenique Hendrix as Mama Huaco

Josiah D. Lee as Oda Nobunaga

Samuel Selman as Shaka Zulu

Web Crystal as Hangbe

• Sasha Di Capri as Attila the Hun, flagged as one of the more experienced actors in the ensemble.
• One reviewer praises the “weirdly diverse” lineup as a rare mix for this kind of bargain-bin action flick—multiple women front and center, plus Black and Asian warriors sharing top billing in the brawl.

$250K TO REWRITE HISTORY: BUDGET MAYHEM & PRODUCTION SCRAMBLE

• Multiple write-ups peg Immortal Combat around the $250,000 budget range, consistent with typical Asylum productions, which famously churn out films in that cost band and claim they’ve “never lost money on a movie.”
• The constraints are all over the screen:
• Fights are described as “slow and clunky,” with choreography that looks hampered by clumsy armor and awkward staging.
• Much of the movie is shot in what critics jokingly call a “random forest location” in L.A. County that looks nothing like the historical settings it’s meant to double for—France, Mongolia, you name it.
• When the plot insists we’re inside a high-tech future facility, reviewers say it feels like a soundstage plus a couple of cheap sets and a broom-closet control room running the whole tournament.
• The one thing consistently praised? Drone shots. Reviewers keep pointing out that the best-looking material is aerial footage—aka the cheapest way to make a $250K movie look like it accidentally had a budget.

FIGHTERS, ZOMBIES & CGI FIRE: THE WILD CREATIVE CHOICES

• The in-universe organization running the tournament is the Temporal Combat Authority (TCA), presiding over a spectacle called “Crimson Havok”—a future bloodsport where billionaires bet on resurrected warriors.
• Between bouts, there are WWE-style hype segments: Attila the Hun and Joan of Arc trash-talk each other in front of cheap CGI fire like they’re cutting promos for Monday Night Raw.
• A key late-film twist: the masterminds behind the tournament experiment with turning fallen fighters into remote-controlled zombies, leaning hard into pulpy sci‑fi.
• One critic jokes the whole thing feels like “a martial arts demo reel someone padded into a feature,” with Aria (Swain) serving as pure exposition and Joan delivering a Tony Robbins–style pep talk mid-apocalypse.

FAN REACTIONS: FROM “AI SLOP” TO INSTANT BAD-MOVIE NIGHT FODDER

• On bad-movie and mockbuster forums, viewers call Immortal Combat “one of the most obvious Mortal Kombat knockoffs yet,” pointing out how shamelessly it mirrors the tournament/fatality structure.
• One group of bad-movie fans admitted they stopped mid-watch because they felt the production leaned heavily on AI-generated assets and cheap effects—yet still conceded the core idea had potential as a cheesy cult favorite.
• Other reviewers embrace it as classic Asylum comfort food: if you go in wanting “famous warriors and cheesy action,” as one site put it, you’ll get exactly that—no more, no less.

In the end, Immortal Combat doesn’t just mash together Joan of Arc and Attila the Hun—it mashes together everything The Asylum does best (and worst): micro-budgets, opportunistic timing, ridiculous lore, and just enough ambition to make you wonder what delirious version of Hollywood greenlit this thing in the first place.