Red Canyon (2008)

An absolute waste of money

A Masterpiece!

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Red Canyon starts as brother & sister Devon (Tim Draxl) & Regina (Christine Lakin) along with several of their friends drive along the long isolated desert highways of Utah en-route to their hometown of Red Canyon, in an attack which still haunts Regina she was raped in a old mine shaft a few years earlier & Devon feels that facing up to the attack will help her get over it. Regina heads to the mine to confront her fears but is attacked again & barely manages to get away, the cops are called the drug making rapist is arrested but soon finds himself free when the Sheriff is murdered by his mates who release him. The rapist & killers & drug dealers all head over to where Devon, Regina & their friends are & terrorise them as they kill them one-by-one...Co-written, co-produced & directed by Giovanni Rodriquez this boring & silly horror thriller is pretty poor, apart from some nice views Red Canyon the film & the town has little going for it. The script is a cross between all those sandy desert set horror films like The Hills Have Eyes (2006) with it's location & teen slasher feel & Straw Dogs (1971) with it's theme of rape & a spirited fightback by the potential victims, only it's nowhere near as good as either of those films. The script tries to be too clever for it's own good, there are constant confused flashbacks to earlier events that are different each time & are just randomly edited into the main film & the final ten minutes is supposed to feature several twist's but they are all pretty predictable, aren't properly explained & don't make a whole lot of sense when you think about them. Running just over 90 minutes Red Canyon is pretty dull & boring, every aspect of Red Canyon is taken from another better film & are just thrown together with little purpose. There is one piece of really bad scripting that is amongst the worst I have ever seen, while hiding in a secret tunnel Regina decides to try & grab her necklace which she dropped & sicks her hand out of the cover to try & find it but the killer then see's her & everyone's cover is blown for no great reason. I mean why give yourself away when you have a good hiding place? All for a stupid necklace?The scenery is quite nice I suppose, it's fairly well made if forgettable & all too familiar. There's not much gore & the rape isn't graphic either. There's lots of annoying scares like Dog's suddenly coming out of nowhere & barking, noises outside a window that turn out to be Cow's & lots of teens walking around in the dark.With a supposed budget of about $1,500,000 this was filmed in Utah, it has reasonable production values but is forgettable. The acting is alright, no-ones going to win any awards though.Red Canyon is a poor patchwork horror film that steals it's ideas from better films & doesn't even make the most of them, I can't say i enjoyed the confusing mix of flashbacks, daft twist's & dumb teenagers. I didn't like it.

Films with Red in the title tend to be good for some reason. No i am not doing a list, though i will mention top Australian thriller Red Hill. This did not get a UK theatre release. I only know of it as it was given faint praise by Kim Newman in an issue of Empire mag on it's belated DVD release.It turns out to be a handsomely filmed Drama with horror overtones as two youngsters and their friends return to the family home in the badlands of Utah, where a brutal rape causes them to return to try to put it behind them. Not the best idea to say the least, but this manages to carry it off with a good script and decent acting.Think the opposite side of the plot in the excellent Wolf Creek and your nearly there. Well worth a look and there's a dog you would not take down the pub!

Warning, I did not see this film.In deciding to watch, I read the glowing reviews.Not just glowing, but reviews meant for real films with real actors, a real script and a real Director.I noted the reviews were the only ones written by a particular author. Not so unusual, but odds are a few reviewers would've written more than one review.Then there was the fact they were all 10 star reviews."Gee," I thought, "COULD THESE POSSIBLY BE FAKE REVIEWS???" Filmmakers, you're terribly misguided. And quite idiotic. Will you do anything to get people to watch this piece of crap? Why not write a good or at least better script instead.Your attempt at manipulation failed as all unctuous plots do when they test people's intelligence. And from a fellow filmmaker - screw you. You're everything that's wrong with the industry.

Red Canyon reminded me a lot of old-style horror movies, where the bad guys were believable & therefore more terrifying. Maybe it's just me, but once horror movies started to take turns with Michael, Freddie & Jason, I grew bored, quickly. A movie should be scary because it shows horrific things that could actually happen, and Red Canyon delivers that in spades.It's not slick, it's not "Hollywood-pretty", but it features some fantastic actors that are truly guided to do their best work by the director. I was most impressed with Norman Reedus (Boondock Saints). The scenery is perfect for a tale such as this. You're allowed to actually THINK while watching this movie; a respite from being spoon-fed (which makes for a boring movie), it's a much "smarter" film than your average horror fare.Horror is not normally my favorite genre, but I was really impressed with this movie. Great story, fabulous acting, etc. Was it sick and twisted? You bet. Did it scare the hell out of me? Yes, all three times I've watched it thus far! Was it awesome? Hell yes!! I really enjoyed it and will look forward to the next film by this director.