Here and The Red: Two Horror (or Horrific) Films Open on Halloween

0

Two new films open on Halloween in New Zealand. The Red is a horror film about a giant zombie kangaroo while Here, made by many of the same folks who brought you Forrest Gump, is just horrible. 

So, let’s start with the good one.

The RedThe Red, directed by Ryan Coonan, takes place in a remote Australian town called Axehead, where Rippy, a giant Zombie Kangaroo leaves a trail of carnage in its wake. The only hope lies in local police officer Maddy (Tess Haubrich). With the help of the town, Maddy takes on the creature in a battle for survival and a desperate mission to stop Rippy. Proving once again that in Australia, everything really is trying to kill you.

Starring Michael Biehn, Tess Haubrich, Aaron Pederson, Angie Milliken and clocking in at a trim 83 minute, The Red is exactly what you need on all hallows eve. Most of the townspeople are so dumb, they deserve to be ripped to shreds by a giant kangaroo, and that’s just what happens. Maddy looks more like a runway model than a police officer and she seems to be completely on her own battling the locals and then Rippy. Unlike the similar-themed Cocaine Bear, The Red’s writers don’t even bother to try and explain how or why there is a Zombie Kangaroo, we just know he’s angry and hungry. And that’s more than enough!

HereThen there is Here.

Here is a high-concept film featuring the reunited director, writer, and stars of Forrest Gump. That should have been my first clue that this was going to be a stinker. I know many folks love Forrrest Gump, but I was so turned off by it when I saw it I almost left the cinema in a huff when I saw it back in 1994. So now director Robert Zemeckis and Eric Roth, who wrote Gump, reunite stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. The high-concept is that the entire film, save for one scene, is shot from the same locked-down location, but over a period of time spanning literally eons. We see the primordial ooze spawn the dinosaurs, then the ice age, then Native Americans then Ben Franklin, then finally Tom Hanks as one of several members of families who inhabit the house, built in 1900 in the shadow of Franklin’s “heritage house”, Zemeckis uses box wipes to transition from one story to another…we are forced to follow about three or four families simultaneously. It gets tired fast and the various characters are mostly stereotypes from the 20th century.

Its cloying, overly sentimental and badly written. And then there is the AI technology used to turn the 68 year old Hanks into a teenager. Now that’s really scary!

Both The Red and Here open in cinemas today.
Marty Duda
Marty Duda
Latest posts by Marty Duda (see all)