Review of Red State (2011) by Spangle — 01 May 2016

Red State is an interesting offering from writer/director Kevin Smith. A unique take on the whole Westboro Baptist Church nonsense, except if they were heavily armed domestic terrorists, Red State is a compelling film.

There are certainly moments of pure terror to be found here and it is most certainly well-directed by Smith in that regard. However, he abandons all of these into a sea of bullets and ends it in truly anti-climactic fashion.

These are both major negatives, but this really combine with the bad acting from most of our young leads (the older folks do pretty well, especially John Goodman). The comedic aspects here are oddly placed and while some do hit, most are just truly awkward and miss the mark.

Incredibly inspired by the 70's/80's teenage slasher flicks before it, Red State is classic Kevin Smith fare, especially in the fact that something about it feels oddly unsatisfying.