Thursday 17 October 2013

The Hills Run Red

"The Hills Run Red" (2009, Dave Parker, Dark Castle Entertainment, Warner Premiere) is a twisted slasher with a bit of a sick dig at its fans and fans of horror in general.

Tyler (Tad Hilgenbrink) is an obsessive horror fan. In fact he's obsessed with one particular horror film; a 'lost' film by a director, Concannon (William Sadler), who swiftly disappeared after making it.

In an attempt to find the missing footage and put a rest to his obsession, Tyler, along with his two friends, Serina (Janet Montgomery) and Lalo (Alex Wyndham), track down the director's stripper, junkie daughter, Alexa (Sophie Monk) and head out to the site of the film. All the while filming themselves and laughing merrily about how this is just like the start to... well, a horror film!

And wouldn't you know it? Things go awry. Very awry.

Bending the rules and breaking the fourth wall creatively, this film manages to be a gore soaked torture and mystery film in the way that the first "Saw" movie managed, but perhaps with less brains behind the plot.

Aside from the viewer prodding plot, there are some very good tropes in this film. The masked killer, Babyface (portrayed by Raicho Vasilev, Danko Jordanov and Itai Diakov), is a good one. The legend behind him isn't too important, but the disturbing physical appearance of our killer coupled with the 'reality' we discover is truly grotesque. The mask itself is beyond creepy and he also manages to effect that hulking but sad character that's often associated with masked slasher villains. He also threatens people by pointing a gun at his own head which makes.... what kind of sense?! But somehow works...

Our director is wonderfully psychotic. And that's as much as I'll say about him.

While I didn't feel particularly vested in the characters, the end scenes are really horrific and I have to hand it to the writers, this is a twisted little plot.

It's worth a see for some good kill scenes, a lot of gore, a bit of mystery and an incredible slasher mask!

[Image: Dark Castle Entertainment]
 
Hani

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