FrightFest review – The Red Mask
‘Feminist icon’ Allina Green (Helena Howard) has just snagged the gig of writing and directing a reboot of a slasher film series which kicked off in 1982 – and a torrent of online reactions would be classed as a cariacture of the sort of maniac response this kind of news gets if it weren’t for the fact that you could easily screenshot worse about far milder do-overs. Allina and her fiancee Deetz (Inanna Sarkis) are spending time at an isolated house run as an AirBnB by Deetz’ cousin Jerry (Joey Millin) – and in order to work through her creative block, the women are running role-play scenarios about a home invasion by the franchise fiend the Red Mask. Then – as in Bone Lake – an apparent double booking brings a smiling, good-looking, wildly inappropriate new couple into the mix – Claire (Kelli Harner) and Ryan (Jake Abel) – who seesaw between friendly/enthusiastic and ominous/terrifying. But who of the quartet is the most dangerous to the others, and can arguing about VHS era horror films really lead to a progressive new movie – or an old-fashioned, for-real bloodbath.
Writers Samantha Gurash and Patrick Robert Young play a few Scream games – to the extent of spoilering Scream 3 all these years later – about horror and general film rules. Allina tells civilian Deetz that if a screenplay mentions an item, then it better be relevant later in the day – and we dutifully notice references to a pitchfork and some bear-traps. Allina and Claire bond, in unlikely horror fan fashion, in their love for Funny Games, a film that’s a lot easier to admire than it is to like – suggesting dark things about both characters. And Ryan just wants to see tits and gore like in the 80s without having to feel guilty about patriarchy or white privilege.
Director Ritesh Gupta stages The Red Mask as a chase around a house in the woods, not downplaying the suspense in order to get a debate going – obviously, the film is inclined to support Allina (it’s one of a clitch of FrightFest selections this year with women of colour in the lead) but the character isn’t a woke saint and even rebukes herself for failing to come to grips with the demands of the ‘requel’ gig (incidentally, in terms of affirmative action, you couldn’t get woker than the Slumber Party Massacre franchise – four films written and directed by progressive women). It’s almost entirely a four-person film, like some meta slasher spin on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (one of the most persistent influences on low-budget horror to this day – it’s a wonder no one has made a movie called Get the Guests yet) – and all four leads are excellent.
Here’s the FrightFest listing.
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