Customer Reviews

Red Ridge

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This is one of those films that start out with great promise and many surprising moments, but then eventually mires itself into a state of suspended belief that almost borders on slapstick.

Basically, you have a group of white trash dirtbags living in a small Texas town, who, along with everyone in the district law enforcement ( other then the town sheriff himself ), are involved in kidnapping young women, and keeping them as high priced sex slaves. It is a film that promises all the trimmings of a sleazy exploitation diet, along with a filling entree of horror and violence. There is nothing in this film that even remotely suggest that this is responsible socially conscious film making, which only has me scratching my head as to why they didn't just go all the way with the depravity. But what one quickly learns while watching Red Ridge, is that no one in this film is capable of finishing what they started.

The main piece of female eye candy is a character named Dawn played by Shawna McLean, who spends the majority of the picture cuffed on a bed in just her bra and panties. She is grouped and fondled over these flimsy garments quite a few times, and is nearly raped on more then one occasion, but despite the fact that these moments are filmed in an arousing manner of male libido teasing titillation, and not as the ghastly crimes that they truly are, the actual act of debauchery never takes place. In fact, Dawn doesn't so much as show a single nipple during all the ordeals she faces in this film. Maybe her bra and panties are tattooed on?

In an odd way, I felt like I was watching one of those early 1960's suspence films in which the damsel in distress would infuriatinly twist her ankle and fall down during the most inopportune moments of an escape scene. In the case of Red Ridge, it is the rapist who keeps twisting his ankle and falling down rather then fulfilling his attack, only it is not his ankle that he twists.

Coitus Interruptus.

Even more perplexing, there is a kidnapper named Lalo who's entire reason for being in the film seems to be that of stopping his cohorts in crime from getting their jollies. Every other sentence out of his mouth is. " We don't have time for this." " If you mess her up, I'll kill you!" , or. " That's enough of that." Talk about being a downer, this guy is the ultimate filmatic party pooper. One just has to wonder what Lalo is doing running a criminal enterprise of ill repute, when he is so horrendously uptight about sexual acts. His character would of made a much better health inspector then smut peddling pimp, and to be honest, I think his band of lusty degenerates would of done away with him a long long time ago for being such a stick in the mud.

What Red Ridge is trying to be, is a poor mans Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They even went so far as to place the story in Texas, and to film most of the lawlessness in an identical looking house. One scene even has a pigeon, rather then a chicken, laughing and cackling in a bird cage inside of the house, as the hero tries to rescue his captured family members. The homage to Chainsaw wasn't enough for the creators of Red Ridge however, In what I think could only have been a vein attempt to be noticably different then Tobe Hooper's masterpiece, the film makers tried to incorporate equal parts of I Spit On Your Grave into Red Ridge. They even had their own mentally retarded Matthew Lucas character in the form of a gas station attendant named Pete. Yet a poor man's Texas Chainsaw Massacre this isn't. This isn't even a poor mans I Spit On Your Grave.

The crucial ingredient that gets lost a quarter of the way into Red Ridge is that of horror. This wasn't because Red Ridge is a film made by amateurs that don't know how to cut together a proper phone conversation, or put a believable blood stain on a shirt. Red Ridge loses all its believablity the moment Dawn is cuffed to the bed, and everyone involved in the crime fails to defile her. From that point on, Red Ridge become increasingly unrealistic, and identifies its dramatic story arch as that of a young lady hostage keeping her purity safe from leering perverted captors. Instead of a horror movie, we now have the familiar story line of a girl tied to a log in a saw mill being rescued mere moments before she is to be cut in half. In this case, the log is replaced by a bed, and the saw blade is replaced by redneck creeps.

Despite trying to be something that it is not. Despite being filled with poorly scripted dialog and bad acting. Despite questionable lighting techniques in which principle lights where more often then not, hidden behind ceiling fans ( By the end of the first scene in the sheriff's office, I not only wished blindness upon myself, I wanted to poke out my third eye ). Red Ridge still manages to somehow beat all the odds, and remain entertaining throughout. Only, it's for all the wrong reasons. Whatever you do, just don't go into this film expecting to remain surprised or terrified, because when it's all said and done, Red Ridge is not the poor mans Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Red Ridge is more the homeless mans Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It was okay, a B movie of course, but it wasnt that bad. But who really stops to look at Puppies in the middle of no where. LOL