Red State movie review (2011)

Red State (2011)

Brief review: In its core, "Red State" is definitely a horror movie, even though it doesn't really feel like one. On one hand, it fails do deliver any real scares and thrills along the way, but on the other hand, this extreme fundamentalist Christian madness and denial of modern reality is nothing short of terrifying and utterly disturbing. Kevin Smith is that type of director that you ether love or hate, because he's a bit hard-to-get as a filmmaker. His films are a too weird and pretentious for mass tastes, and "Red State" is no exception. Here, Smith's direction often lacks focus and cohesion, the pacing drags a bit too much, and the movie is full of unnecessarily extended scenes that get tiresome real soon. Having said that, the script is clever and exceptionally well-written, and allows the entire cast to shine. "Red State" is worth-seeing for the performances alone. Academy Award winner Melissa Leo steals the show with her sensational performance as the brainwashed, yet tough believer, Sara. Michael Parks is absolutely brilliant as the manipulative crazy preacher, Abin Cooper, and Kerry Bishé delivers excellent performance as the innocent and caring Cheyenne. The rest of the cast does a great job as well, with Stephen Root and John Goodman being the standouts.

Overall summary: Believable, well acted and thoroughly disturbing, yet quite pretentious, too talky and visually dull, "Red State" fails in its ambition to be a subtle horror, dark comedy and action thriller all at once, and ends up being a mess that can't cope with its own weirdness.