Red State Review

• 7th Feb 2012

The minute I started about thinking about having to write this review my head started swimming. What can I say about it that will do it justice? It’s a brilliant film that broaches a sensitive subject without being cruel or pointing fun and just demands repeat viewings. Unsurprisingly, those less imaginative reviewers have noticed the mention of religion in this film and automatically linked it to Dogma, which is a very, very different film.

Red State is, at its core, a horror movie and a good horror movie at that. It may not be jam packed with jumps and scares in the traditional sense but it is definitely scary. There are no big, scary monsters or undead beings that only actually exist in the darkest corners of your mind. The scariest part of this film is that these things could actually happen.

Three teenage friends venture to a nearby town for a four way sexual encounter with a woman old enough to be their mother. Two beers later and they find themselves in a predicament a lot deeper than a few flirty messages over the internet first indicated. The boys find themselves bound and trapped by Five Points Trinity Church. This family come church group have some particularly strong ideas about God’s will and have taken the law into their own hands to start murdering sinners. (Westboro Baptist Church has strongly protested against this film as Five Points shares a lot of the same beliefs as Westboro but is a much amplified version.) The Cooper family’s antics haven’t gone unnoticed and they are under investigation by the ATF. This culminates in a huge machine gun fire stand-off between the church and the government.

All the acting in this film is first class; Michael Parks needs to be singled out for his performance though. He is an incredible character actor and plays the hate mongering church leader, Abin Cooper, fantastically. You can really see the thought processes working in Cooper’s twisted mind. John Goodman also turns in a superb performance as the chief ATF agent working on the on-going case of Cooper family disturbances.

This is a very powerful movie and a good insight into the turmoil that the United States of America is going through in this post 9/11 world. I think this film manages to hit a nerve and shake you up because you don’t get emotionally involved with the characters. There is no one to root for, no one to really care about and this somehow made it feel more real, more like I was watching a news story or documentary unfold before me. This made me feel uncomfortable yet absolutely gripped by and riveted to the story.

Laura Johnson