Review – Red Mist

It isn’t often that I’ll watch low budget horror fare and go away thinking “that’s a pretty good film”, but tonight that’s exactly what I thought after popping RED MIST into the trusty DVD player.

Red Mist (or “Freakdog” in the States) is directed by “Shrooms” helmer Paddy Breathnach and stars Arielle Kebbel (“The Uninvited”, “Gilmore Girls”), Andrew Lee Potts (“Primeval”, “Ideal”), Alex Wyndham (“Little Dorrit”, “Rome”) and Colin Stinton (“House of Saddam”, “The Bourne Ultimatum”), the film hits UK theatres on 3rd July 2009.

The medical students at Forthaven General Hospital study hard and party harder, until a cruel prank accidentally puts the facility’s creepy janitor into a deep coma. But when one responsible student tries to revive the degenerate loner with an experimental injection, she instead sends his brainwaves berserk. Will a sudden spree of sick kicks now claim the guilty one-by-one, or has the ultimate out-of-body experience ushered in a bloodbath of brutal revenge?

As I said in my opening paragraph, Red Mist is a pretty good film as far as horror-flicks go, and it’s a film I’d be proud to have in my DVD collection, sure it’s low budget and there’s the occasional cliché here and there but all in all the film is original, polished and most importantly – interesting.

The soundtrack is a little bland in places, but the cinematography is crisp and fresh, and the acting is almost note perfect. Add to that a handful of very original looking death sequences (who uses a funnel?) and you have yourself a pretty strong formula for a good horror film.

The thing that struck me more than anything was the sheer quality of performance from Arielle Kebbel and Britain’s own Andrew Lee Potts. Arielle makes a fantastic protagonist for the picture, and despite the far-fetched premise you really feel yourself sympathising, and dare I say identifying with her plight. As previously stated her acting is superb, someone give that lady a blockbuster lead already!

Andrew on the other hand plays a relatively silent role through the film, apart from the initial, disturbing scenes he spends a lot of his time in a coma, frantically moving his eyeballs around under his comatose eyelids and clenching his fists a lot. The thing is that in the 30 or so minutes that he’s awake and talking, Andrew gives what I would consider to be one of the best performances of his career to date. Andrew’s character (Kenneth) has clearly had a disturbing upbringing and as a result he is a very troubled, voyeuristic individual. Kenneth also has a very bad stammer, which Andrew manages to pull of with perfect timing, leaving you wondering whether or not it’s actually real or just for show.

The thing about the Kenneth that really struck me though was the fact that you could almost say he goes from hero to villain during the course of the movie, and yet I never seemed to lost the sympathy I built for him in the initial half hour. As I said his childhood was far from perfect (I’ll leave out the spoilers and leave it up to your imagination), but in all truth as an adult Kenneth himself becomes a horrible, perverse individual, and yet for some reason I really felt for this character. Even when he becomes an almost lifeless patient in the very hospital he works in, even when he ruthlessly murders most of the cast, I still felt sorry for him. His is a tale of vengeance, and while it may not be an ideal situation you really have to think to yourself that if you were in the same position – would you be that much different?

Scary thoughts I know, but that seems to be the charm of this little low-budget horror film that came out of nowhere and restored my faith in a very tired looking genre. With so many years of “Torture Porn” horror, it’s so nice to see an original looking film from a genre that has largely become tired and mass produced (anyone who’s seen SAW II – V will know what I mean) and I quite readily applaud both the cast, and the director in this juicy little underdog of a movie. I can’t wait to see what Paddy Breathnach comes up with next!

Red Mist hits UK theatres on 3rd July 2009, and hits the DVD/Blu-Ray stands on 13th July 2009, check out the trailer below for a little taster:

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Tags: Andrew Lee Potts, Arielle Kebbel, Paddy Breathnach, red mist, review