Coroner’s Report: Red Velvet
Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 24, 2009
Long time no see kids. My bad. We’re getting ready to kick off 31 Days of Horror again this year, obviously starting on October 1st. I’m going to use that as my excuse for taking some time away from the column, rather than just admitting I’m lazy. This week we’re talking Red Velvet, which has very little to do with the delicious, buttery cake and more to do with quasi-experimental horror. This flick stars Henry Thomas, whose name you probably can’t place – he was Elliot in E.T. and is about a weirdo named Aaron who is telling the made up macabre story about how Linda’s friends were all killed by a pscyho murderer. But since this is a horror movie, you’re probably wondering just how made up that story is.
Kills
We’ll say that there are nine deaths in the film, though with the story telling aspect of it, we see some people die more than once as the story is retold. Not a ton of deaths, but a good few.
Ills
Someone is smothered, a head gets cut off, some fingers get cut off, there are some stabbings, an alligator used as a murder weapon (no joke), some blood and a hatchet to the head. The two best gore moments are a saw that tears a body in half, releasing a geyser of blood and a hammer used to pound out Rush’s greatest hits on someones skull. Ok, so there is no melody to it, just lots and lots of face smashing.
Lust
We see some butts, from both dudes and chicks, a pair of boobs and if you’re into that kind of thing, a guy going down on another guy – though you don’t see anything more than the head-bob.
Learning
Weirdos who seem like serial killers are obviously serial killers. Every single time.
Review
This flick, which is available only through Amazon.com, starts things off with an absolutely atrocious menu, but hey, they can’t all be works of art. The movie is a bit on the experimental side, with the retelling of the narrative over and over at some parts, which will either work for you or annoy you. Parts of the story are interrupted with the masked head of the killer spinning around over a psychedelic background, sort of like some old tripped out cartoon. Personally, that doesn’t do it for me. There are also some strange lighting choices – it looks good, it just seems a bit out of place.
Some of the acting is stale and there is a bit where someone throws a hammer that looks more like a friendly game of catch than an assault. The ending is predictable and will surprise exactly no one. Most of the time the movie is fairly average, though there are definite moments of absolute shit, punctuated with the rare moments of greatness.
If you’re a fan of experimental horror and are looking for a narrative expressed in a different way, then Red Velvet may have enough going on to keep you interested. For the average horror fan and myself, this movie is that is better left alone. I can appreciate the filmmakers taking a risk and trying something new, but ultimately they give us a weird mish-mash of low budget effects and costuming coupled with a strange narrative that doesn’t completely work for me.
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