Red State Review

Back when I was a little lad, my life was changed forever at my parents video store when a box of screeners from Miramax came along which included both Pulp Fiction, and Clerks. The moment I saw Clerks I was instantly hooked and a Kevin Smith fan from then on out. Some 15 give or take a couple years later, he has announced he is only doing two more movies before hanging it up. Red State, and Hit Somebody.

Now even though I have been a huge fan of Kevin Smith, I am also a horror movie geek. So when I first heard the news of both those worlds coming together, I felt a shift in my bowels. Red State never played in any theatres here in AZ, so I had to count the days to Sept 1st. When it would finally arrive in iTunes and VOD.

Red State is the first movie in a very, very long time that took my totally by surprise. There are no heroes, there are no typical movie moments. It is one of those rare movies that you have no clue as to where things might lead, and anything can and does happen at any moment. You get introduced to a new character to only have them wiped out seconds later. I avoided all reviews, boards, threads, tweets, articles, everything I could to try to remain as spoiler free as I could going into the movie so I am keeping this review of it the same. If you are a Kevin Smith fan, you will love this movie. If you are not a Kevin Smith fan, you will love this movie. It has moments where I literally sat up out of my damn recliner and said "holy shit" out loud to myself and thought about pausing the movie or just, doing something because I was taken so off guard by what had happened I didn't know what to do with myself. All bets are off in this movie.

The acting in this is stellar. Even if a character has just a couple minutes of screen time, they are remembered for those few brief moments. This entire cast deserves a standing O.

Red State is disturbing, its fresh, its possibly the best movie of 2011. And quite possibly the best movie of Kevin Smiths career. It is a damn shame and makes a fan like myself sad to see someone I have watched grow as a film maker take a huge risky leap and accomplish such an achievement knowing that they are going to be doing no more.

Kevin Smith no longer making films, is a huge loss to the movie world. Mainly because there needs to be more people like him making movies today.