Review of Red State (2011) by George C — 28 Jan 2012

I hate it when movies with totally awesome concepts fall well short of their potential. Horror film involving really batshit insane fundamentalists? Kevin Smith at the helm? Yeah he doesn't do horror typically but why the hell not? I was down. Thankfully it's a short film so I can't add the claim that it's boring to whatever else is going to follow.

It's not a Kevin Smith movie without some references to sex and kinky sex at that. So our three doomed high school boys get caught into this trap by the promise of a foursome with a thirty eight year old woman. Random and weird but why not. Said supposed loose cougar like woman ends up drugging them and lugging them off to the local militant crazy church with a penchant for luring in sinners, tying them to a cross and executing them. FBI like people eventually get involved, FBI like people are told to raid the place and leave no survivors. Pretty much everybody dies.

If it had ended the way that Kevin Smith had originally planned it to it might have been better. Instead this stuff happens to prove that both sides are no better than the other here, which sort of works, but then just seems to fall flat somehow. That's really all I can say about it. The only performance here that I really like was John Goodman and that's more because I like John Goodman rather than any sort of good material he had to work with. Abin Cooper just sounded like any other batshit crazy pastor but somehow that didn't manage to terrify me.

So, yeah. Very flat. I wish the Rapture had actually come.