Review of Red Sands (2009) by Rob C — 01 Mar 2011

A squad of American soldiers are stationed in a remote part of Afghanistan when one of them uses an ancient statue for target practice, unknowingly unleashing a Djinn. They soon hole up in an abandoned building, where their communication system goes down and an unknown Arab woman comes out of the desert storm. After her discovery, strange things start to happen to the soldiers, causing them to hallucinate.

Red Sands was a surprisingly good psychological film. Each character deals with his own fear and we're subjected to the slow deterioration of their psyches. The Djinn doesn't become readily available to us until the end of Red Sands and when it does, it sort of throws off a weak vibe. Luckily, it only appears on the screen for about half a minute. Most of the killing comes from the soldiers on eachother, which sort of makes the appearance of the Djinn kind of useless. The audience wouldn't have noticed the difference if it made itself completely scarce. Honestly, I wouldn't have noticed the difference.

Each character kept the film in a steady-pace and wasn't rushed in the slightest. I was thoroughly intrigued with the whole layout of the film until the final scene came into play which provided a nice little twist to the storyline. Granted, it was a bit predictable, but nonetheless, a fine ending to an interesting film.