Popular reviews

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  Review by Silent J ★★★ 2

  In the first half, this was a movie about Jesus.

  In the second, Jesus just shit himself.

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  Review by Evan ★★½ 3

  Film #8 of Hoop-Tober.

  I'm really not sure what to think of Kevin Smith's film Red State. I sort of hated it and I sort of liked it at the same time. I'll just settle for 2.5 stars. It was okay, I guess?

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  Review by Simon Ramshaw ★★★★ 5

  "You said this was going to be a simple in-and-out, sir. Simple just shit itself." - Joe Keenan

  There's something about this film that hopelessly endearing. It's like a baby being birthed into the world; confused, lost, messy and gory from all of the afterbirth that's come after it, but ever so lovable. You think that's a weird analogy? Red State is a weird film.

  Beginning as an immature and unfunny teen comedy, turning into a religious torture-porn movie, then twisting itself into a siege movie and ending a religious satire that leaves a massive grin plastered across your face at the end of a relatively short 80 minutes, it's probably one of the most schizophrenic movies of all time.…

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  Review by Will Sloan ★ 1

  Kevin Smith's first horror movie — a labour of love that was much anticipated on certain corners of the internet a decade ago. Nobody watches or talks about it anymore because, frankly, it is bad and not interesting. Nothing good here. Justin and I revisited it because we dared each other. Don't make our mistake.

  The plot — in which a murderous Westboro Baptist Church-like cult gets caught in a siege against the FBI — frequently makes no sense. Smith, a notoriously poor visual stylist, attempts to up his game by introducing shaky-cam and random jump-cuts, to no avail. Smith clearly wants to Say Something™, but has a Neil Breen-level grasp of politics, so the best he can come up…

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  Review by josh lewis ★★

  a sort of serious attempt at hicksploitation indie-horror where kevin smith is clearly trying to make a genre pastiche you could imagine ti west or eli roth making... and i guess does so to more success than he did trying to recreate the buddy cop movie. it's pretty violent, he somehow recruited some REAL actors for it, and there is some attempt to maintain a gruesome, ugly tone throughout but as always kevin just can't help but shoot it in the most visually annoying and boring way possible, he has no sense of skill or control over the mechanics of it as a piece of action-thriller geography which makes it feel pretty monotonous and drawn out even at 80 minutes, and the few attempts at humorously making some sort of commentary or point about this bleak subject matter are embarrassing.

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  Review by Rollatini ★★½ 5

  45

  This is a horror movie? 

  Red State has quite the cult following so I was expecting a bit more from this one. The premise is an interesting concept (three horny boys get lured into a trap by an insane pastor) and the cast is definitely good. Just nothing in the writing is anywhere near as fulfilling as that premise and cast. One very extended monologue especially shows how much Kevin Smith lacks the talent as a writer to make something like this (even when his cast is executing as best they can). So much exposition is delivered with so little nuance that it makes me once again question how successful he would have been had he stayed an indie…

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  Review by Justin Decloux ★

  I remember eagerly looking forward to RED STATE, excited that a filmmaker I enjoyed was trying something radically different and doing it fast, cheap, and passionately.

  When I finally saw it in 2011, I didn't like it, but I appreciated the effort.

  Now, my present-day self would like to re-evaluate my previously held opinion of this motion picture for the public record:

  It fucking sucks.

  RED STATE is an obnoxiously ugly film that revels in dull horror cliches: Ugly colourless photography, pointless handheld camerawork, and shock deaths that serve no purpose because everyone on-screen is a flavourless monster. The film devolves into a one-long gunfight that could easily be made up of stock footage from a Steven Seagal film shot…

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  Review by 𝚣𝚎𝚞𝚜 ★★★½

  This was quite the fucking ride! I had no idea what to expect and the first half sets some shit that made me think it was going in a particular direction but my expectations were subverted. I wouldn’t go as far as considering this a horror movie but I guess anything that deals with religious extremists should be classified as such. That ending really threw me for a loop though!!

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  Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸 ★ 9

  Stevil Intentions – The 2010s Horror Month

  Well this isn't a horror film at all, is it? In fact, it's barely a film.

  It's fucking crap, I'll say that. But because it's not a horror I guess I can't get too mad that it's another slab of turd that I've lumbered myself with during this largely disastrous project, where every decent film I've watched has been greeted by me like I've just been given the all-clear from recovering from a terminal disease.

  I'm NOT a Kevin Smith hater. I liked Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma and Clerks 2, so let's just brush that under the carpet right away. Plus I don't follow him on social media and I don't really know what…

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  Review by Héctor

  The movie is a bit fucked up but i really enjoyed it. If you're an atheist or just hate religious people you would like it.

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  Review by Michelle Parsons ★★★½ 7

  So I’ve had this Blu-ray sitting in my watch pile for at least five years and have never seen it (it was a Christmas gift). I remember it getting a lot of flak back in the day when it came out so I never got around to watching it until tonight. I purposely went into it completely blind, never even reading the back of the Blu-ray cover because I didn’t want any spoilers. And I actually liked it quite a bit!! I absolutely love Michael Parks, and the rest of the cast is pretty impressive too. Michael Parks’ dancing was the definite highlight for me, but I do wish they would have kept the original ending.

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  Review by Cecil Selwyn ★★★★ 6

  Patriot Act, bitch.

  thrilling, chilling, hilarious in equal measure...some of the best handheld i've ever seen...Smith (somehow) delivers a film with (his) whip-smart writing and constant momentum through (also his!) editing...i'm fucking floored what the fuck

  more than excellent as an amalgamation of genres in a tightly wound package with fantastic performances, elevated higher by a shotgun blast toward the politics of this material that hits some rarely spoken truths...there's something raw about this

  you may also like: Zombie, Shyamalan, Saw, Van Sant, Kelly