[The Hills Run Red]
Plot:Tyler, a film fanatic whose obsession with finding a complete print of an infamous slasher movie leads him and two friends into the backwoods where the film was shot. They realize too late that filming never ended--and now they must survive a nightmarish onslaught or become part of the movie forever.

Cast:Nick Principe, Willaim Sadler, Sophie Monk, Tad Hilgenbrinck, Mike Straub, Ewan Bailey, Danko Jordanov.

My Thoughts:Repetition is annoying.

Review:I will admit, I was super excited about seeing Dave Parker's slasher pic "The Hills Run Red". It was a Dark Castle Production, and they usually put out some good stuff. Their most recent being "Orphan". But "The Hills Run Red", while it succeeds at being a horror movie, and most certainly, a slasher movie...it fails miserably at being anything but. It's like a birdhouse without the foundation.

Sure, the birds can fly inside the house, but where will they perch themselves so they can drink and eat? In this films case, it's a slasher movie.....but not much else. The pic follows a teen named Tyler, who is a fanatic obsessed with a film called "The Hills Run Red". A movie which was controversial, so controversial in fact that it vanished mysteriously, along with it's director. Tyler wants to find the movie, and to do this he enlists the help of his friends. But also plans to find the crown jewel of his quest.

The eccentric filmmakers daughter (Sohpie Monk), who he hopes will lead him to the movie. He believes this to be true because she starred in the film which her father directed, "The Hills Run Red". The film starts off with a really great base for a story. And the acting and the characters are pretty tolerable, ALWAYS a plus in slasher movies where most of the time, the characters are unbearable and you hope they get offed quick, early, and often. The film starts off with a really creepy and mysterious vibe.

See, the disappeared filmmaker's daughter became a stripper, and for some reason, perhaps because of her heroin addiction which is documented early in the movie...cannot remember anything about shooting the film, or it's locations, or anything. So we're burdened with possibly suspecting her as the killer when the killer finally does show up. Then again, her father is still missing so for all we know, it could be him.

But then, considering the group of kids are headed up to the sticks for this little search and recover mission, the killer could always be one of the really screwed up local hillbillies. And whatever happened to the guy who played Babyface, the films psycho killer? What are his whereabouts exactly? "The Hills Run Red", despite surrounding itself with a number of cliches early on to build the viewers interest, and pique their intrigue about who the killer might end up being...had a choice. It could've went original, and flipped the script entirely.

Thus making for a bad ass picture. Or, it could've gone the predictable route and just put the viewer into an eye-rolling sleep. And well my friends, this film decides to pick option 2. When the latter parts of act 2 rolls around, that's when we get into the slasher era of the film, where the blood and guts really begin to fly. But the problem is, the film is so poorly structured that these moments and collection of scenes aren't epic in the least. They're run-of-the-mill.

Nothing exciteable or really eye-poppingly-awesome. Just the standard smash and kill stuff. But when the film reaches the third act, and throws in the big reveal about the films villain, that's when my migraine kicked in. This movie literally went from slasher pic, to "Texas Chainsaw Massacre:The Beginning" clone. And what was an atleast half-way decent slasher film, became just another psychobilly horror flick.

With some different tweaks and twists added in of course, but nonetheless, you could still draw comparisons, strong ones, between this film, and all of those city-kids-victimized-by-backwoods-types indie slasher films that come out every other week. Only this movie waits late in the game to spring the unhappy surprise upon us. And believe me, I was very unhappy with this movie after it was all said and done. "The Hills Run Red" had a shot at being something special, but instead, winds up as being just something.."borrowed".

Positives:Good performances, tolerable teen-aged characters, lots of blood and gore. A cool mask sported by the babyface killer.

Negatives:A script that just doesn't carry any pepper or "oomph". Too cliche in too many areas, and the third act is such a let down.

Overall:One and a half stars out of four.





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