Red Victoria DVD Review

Red Victoria is a perfect representation of what good, well-thought out horror can be. It does not need a ridiculous amount of gore and sex for a plot to be clever. The entire premise of the movie is well scripted and shockingly enough, I only have positive things to say!

The director, Anthony Brownrigg, is a straight up genius.  He, unlike most of his nymphomaniac colleagues, knows the secret concoction to making suspense and humor marry well together. Most of the humor within this movie is very dark and morbid, but who doesn’t harbor a love for a cringe-worthy joke? The one-liners are delivered with the ease of seasoned veterans much like, dare I say, my beloved Bruce Campbell?

The story follows a down-on-his-luck, melodramatic film writer, Jim, who has an affinity for snooze-worthy dramas. Finally sniffing a way out of the shit hole the pretentious Jim had begun to dig for himself, his bubbly agent decides to sign Jim up for the next job available-a horror movie. After much incredulous sighs of disgust and scoffs akin to a Tyra Banks meltdown, Jim concedes and begins the painful trek towards horror; a landscape he has never crossed before.

Page after gashed page drops from Jim’s finger tips as frustration and insecurities swallow him whole. Not even the help of his horror-buff sidekick, Carl, seems to console his doubts any. A bottle of sherry knocked down with a few ice cubes, a reciting of a famous Shakespeare play that births creepy ambience later, and Jim shuffles off to bed.

This is where it becomes interesting: a dead body is waiting in his bed under the covers. The make-up is amazingly realistic and the special effects are anything but cheesy. Victoria (the decaying body that slowly rises before Jim with a staggering speed) introduces herself as Jim’s “horror muse.” Victoria’s role in the movie is to help pump Jim up enough to write his horror script by having him experience it first hand. The more Jim refuses to believe in and accept the power and wisdom Victoria beholds, the quicker Jim’s close friends begin to drop dead one by one. And the more Victoria attempts to drag out Jim’s bloodlust, the more Jim attempts to kill her.

The pacing of the movie is wonderful; nothing is rushed and nothing is dragged out. The thing I enjoyed the most about this movie were all the cheeky nods towards overly zealous horror directors in cleverly structured one-liners. The ending is also very powerful; something that caught me completely by surprise. Red Victoria has won two awards, including the audience award from Texas Frightmare Weekend 2008. It’s a great movie and an awesome example that even the lowest budgeted of films can still be stringed together coherently.

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