Reviewed by MovieMoxie's Alicia Glass
Studio: Smodcast Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Kevin Smith
Review Rating: 6
After answering an online ad for sex with an older woman, three high school boys find much more than they bargained for at the hands of religious nutcases!
This is supposed to be a horror flick directed and written by Kevin Smith. I see almost nothing of Smith’s usual work in here – witty and cutting dialogue, sharp ironic moments, fine thought-provoking acting. The film isn’t a comedy by any means, and there is very little in what one could consider to be horror either. Not a thriller or suspense movie either, for there’s very little of either of those categories as well. What we have here is a kind of Devil’s Rejects and Frailty mish-mash that makes little sense at all.
Travis, Billy-Ray and Jarod, are typical high school boys bent only on getting laid. They discover an ad online where an older woman says she’ll have sex with all three of them at the same time. What else to do, but road trip! They meet up with the woman, in a trailer of course, not exactly dressed for seduction, but she does quickly talk all three boys into downing at least two laced beers. Surprise surprise, the boys wake to find themselves in various compromising positions, held hostage by Abin Cooper and the Five Points Church.
Cooper delivers a grand speech about how the evil in this world is the fault of the homosexuals, shouted encouragement from his flock, and then proceeds to make with the sacrificing of people. Or tries to. Our three heroes, who’ve apparently stumbled right into a Hostel (get it?!) situation, proceed to stumble all over each other in their efforts to get out as quickly as possible. While this is going on, the compound is now being investigated by the Law, led by the already-hamstrung ATF Agent Joseph Keenan, acted by John Goodman. His is the only really good role, and even that is flat and not very explored. There’s a firefight, a last confrontation amid the ringing of what everyone thinks is the Last Bells to usher in the End Times, and a lot more wasted death. No real gore, no jump scares, perhaps some screaming irony in one of Heroes’ deaths, but mostly a streeeetch towards the bleakness style of The Last Exorcism.
I must question why Smith thought this would be a good idea. And then there’s even the title, Red State, which can be taken as a metaphor any number of ways, like many of his movies, yet somehow lacks his normal snark. See it if you must, just to say yes I saw Kevin Smiths’ horror film, and then I’d advise catching something else on Netflix.
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Alicia Glass has been the Editor in Chief and the moving force behind MovieMoxie.net since 2009.
