Red State

Red State

88 min  -  Horror | Thriller   -  19 October 2011 (USA)

Director: Kevin Smith

Writer: Kevin Smith

Stars: Michael Parks, Melissa Leo and John Goodman

Red State is a 2011 American independent horror film written and directed by Kevin Smith with characters inspired by types of fundamentalist religious organizations. The film stars Michael Parks, John Goodman, Academy-award winner Melissa Leo and Stephen Root. Also co-stars Ralph Garman, Kevin Pollak, Kerry Bishe, Haley Ramm, Kevin Alejandro, Anna Gunn, Michael Angarano and Nicholas Braun.

For months, Smith promised that the rights to the film would be auctioned off to a distributor at a controversial event to be held after its premiere at the Sundance film festival, but instead Smith purchased the film himself which, according to analysts, "might have been a difficult sale for any distributor." Smith plans to self-distribute the picture under the "Smodcast Pictures" banner with a traveling show in select cities, before officially releasing the movie on October 19, 2011. Kevin Smith listed Mel Gibson as his inspiration for how he planned to distribute this movie, citing Gibson's The Passion of the Christ as an example of a successfully self-distributed movie.

On June 28th, 2011, Smith announced that he will no longer be self-distributing the film, making the film available to the public instead through Video on Demand and, later, on home video through Lionsgate.

Plot 

Three teenagers come across an online personal advertisement from an older woman looking for kinky group sex. But what begins as a fantasy takes a dark turn as they come face-to-face with a terrifying fundamentalist force with a fatal agenda. A violent church led by a violent preacher Abin Cooper (Michael Parks) kidnaps the boys and holds a long-winded hateful sermon in front of them for his cult members whereby other kidnapped innocent victims are executed. When an ATF agent Keenan (John Goodman) discovers the true nature of the church he orders a raid that turns into an all out gun fight. The three teenagers die in the raid and several officers and cult members perish. At the climax of the battle, strange horns begin to blare all around them out of nowhere spooking everyone. The preacher confidently stops fighting and walks out to the officers declaring that "the rapture" has begun, implying that they are all doomed and that God has come to save the church. Several days later, in a briefing to police and other officials, Agent Keenan explains that after Preacher Cooper had finished ranting to him about the rapture that Keenan head-butted Cooper and brought him into custody. The truth was that the horns were a prank from down the road by marijuana farmers who didn't like the congregation. Cooper spends the remainder of his days in solitary confinement pacing around anxiously in a cramped cell while preaching and muttering to himself as inmates occasionally tell him to shut up.

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