And now, a couple words about RED STATE by Nicole Guice:
I really, really wanted to like Red State. I did. I had been looking forward to it, wanting desperately to believe in Kevin Smith and his potential to do something, anything, that would finally wash the lingering, foul taste of Cop Out out of my mouth. I thought it could be an interesting premise, and I like Kevin Smith, and I like horror, so....I wouldn't say I had high hopes, but I had hopes. Hopes that were viciously shattered, and then ground into tiny sharp pieces of hope-dust and rubbed into my eyes like so much painful, poorly-written glass.
I don't really know where to begin with something this bad. In the absence of an easily identifiable worst part, let's start with the very, very beginning. The last time I heard that much forced exposition was Doomsday, and at least that had enough potential backstory to make it a logical choice to attempt to condense it all into a conversation--here it's just lazy. Lazy, and a bit unnecessary; after all, Five Points is really just a thinly (very thinly) veiled reference to Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist nut jobs, and they're well-known enough that just the sight of them protesting at a funeral would have been enough for me. Isn't it a bit over-the-top to go on and on about how they're so crazy that even Nazis don't want to touch them? For that matter, making it so apparent so early in the movie removes the potential (and there was potential) for any tension about the evil, twisted nature of the group. There's no sense of set up or subtle creepiness, no something's-not-quite-right atmosphere. It's as though you get thrown in during the middle of the movie, after all the build-up has already occurred, and the teacher is just there to catch everyone up. And while we're on the subject: the teacher? Really? Who even talks to their students like that? If it had to be anyone (and it didn't), it should have been the mother, while she and Travis are driving past the protest. It may even have been excusable if it was the only time, just a one-off, but it's not. It's not even one of two poor, lazy choices, but the first in a string of almost uninterrupted exposition. These people talk entirely too much to be characters in a horror film.
Which is too bad, really, because when they aren't talking everyone is doing a very fine job of acting. The cult leader/father/grandfather/Fred Phelps character is especially engaging and perfectly cast--Michael Perks really brings some genuine sociopathic righteousness to the film. John Goodman, when he's not on his cell phone, tirelessly delivers the washed-up-agent-with-a-heart-o'-gold routine, and I even liked the poor guy from Gentlemen Broncos and the sexy orderly from True Blood (look closely, he's one of the ATF agents). Everyone real gives it their all, God bless 'em, but they are given so much crap to sift through that the movie gets bogged down despite their performances.
In all fairness, though, the film doesn't get truly terrible until a bit later. After the incident with the teacher and all the audience eye-rolling that surely accompanied it, the film settles a bit and starts to follow a slightly more traditional, if not entirely orthodox, storyline. In fact, I rather enjoyed the idea of three backwoods high school boys meeting up with an equally backwoods oldish lady over some sex site. It was fun. And when she practically poured beer down their throats, it was easy to see what was coming--but in that fun slasher-movie sort of way. All preparation for some serious gory fun with a slightly religious flavor.
And then it started to suck.
I am of the humble opinion that the best part of any slasher flick is a fun and creative hallmark of mutilation, a truly sick and twisted method of perverting the human form that has either been hitherto unseen or is just particularly well done. I would give major points to even the most shamefully bad movies so long as they include a creative MO or two...so I was incredibly, unspeakably disappointed with the "big reveal" in Red State. Wrapping a guy in saran wrap from head to toe and then shooting him? Even tied to a cross that's no fun. There's not even any blood! No brains! No slimy intestines spilling from a gaping abdominal cavity! Nary a knife or corkscrew or power drill is seen the entire movie, it's all guns--and guns do not make horror films. This was what really did it for me, the definitive sign that nothing about Red State was going to be scary. And the worst part is that it is such a profoundly missed opportunity, bringing those caged and screaming boys in front of a chanting congregation and simply shooting them. There could have been ritual, dark magic, torture, truly twisted stuff all enhanced by the complacency of the churchgoers or their eerie voices chanting in the background...but alas, nothing.
From there, it is only a short--but long, oh so long--time until the ATF arrives (using some ridiculously flimsy excuse about the sheriff and some poster or something), and the guns come out (for no apparent reason) and the whole place becomes the target of a Patriot Act-backed razing (by a small ATF squad). There's also something in there about one of the boy characters and a teenage parishioner trying to escape, but they get shot anyway so it doesn't matter--not that we're given any reason to care about them in the first place.
This is the point when I feel I should mention that in theory, this could be great. I'm not knocking the idea, I can stand behind the potential for a horror movie about a twisted and vicious religious sect. And if this mess had been made by a director with no experience to draw on, it would have been excusable, even commendable. But in this case, with Kevin Smith so experienced and yet so obviously past his movie-making prime, it just doesn't cut it. I find the radical religious right to be as terrifying as the next person, but in Red State the political nature of the issues simply overshadows what could be the makings of a truly scary film. It's painfully obvious that what Smith is doing here is not horror, but telling a specific story that is meant to be a very pointed jab at Fred Phelps & the Westboro Gang, the government, and religion as a whole...and it is this stubborn goal that turns Red State from a horror film into an ideological mess.
But I'll still listen to Smodcast.
