Living In A Red State
Last night, I put the blog on pause and watched Kevin Smith’s latest, RED STATE. Here is how it all went down.
RED STATE is billed as horror and it is most definitely horrific, but I’d call it a thriller before I’d call it a horror movie. Either way, it’s a way solid film. It doesn’t really feel all that much like a Kevin Smith movie, but, well, it’s his work, so there you go.
(Things get freaky!)
Smith’s style is pretty cool. There are lots of flourishes. His characters have lots to say and they say it with a profane wit and wisdom. There’s a little caricature, but once the horror element kicks in, it really doesn’t matter. Folks die left and right. The movie begins to be more about the situation than the characters. It takes on a detached, documentary style. The end gets weird, but instead of going crazy (I might have liked that), explanations set everything right. It almost ruins the movie, but all that has come before is so strong…
RED STATE held me. I dug it. I was entranced by its weird, ramshackle editing, gory gunfights, and kooky preacher soliloquies. It’s a pretty scary film.
Wild…
Michael Louis Calvillo Must Be Destroyed 
October 23, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Loved it. Gotta see it again.
October 25, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Yeah. I’m not sure if I’d want to sit through it again. It’s not bad or anything, but it’s kind of a slimy, unsettling piece of work.
Definitely worth watching though. That preacher dude (Michael Parks, I believe, though he reminds me of the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) does a great job hamming it up (though not as good as he did chewing the scenery as the ill-fated Sherrif in From Dusk ’til Dawn).
I also liked xxxSPOILERxxx (sort of, but not really considering that most of them bite it) Kevin Pollack’s (unexpected / shocking) death scene!