Another day. Another slasher flick. This time the slasher flick is set in a rural forest area with a demonic man whom wears a mask periodically kills off a goup of young men and women. Wow...sounds vaguely familiar when stated like that. When "The Hills Run Red" is pulled down to its bones its your average slasher flick filled with isolation, immense gore, unjustified nudity, and some underwhelming acting.
But for some reason, this one did have a bit of charm to it.
To be more specific, even after the film ended on a rather odd and sudden cut off, I found that I liked it. I probably shouldn't have liked it as much as I should have, as I'm sure you can tell from the opening paragraph, but I did and there are few reasons for such.
Firstly, I liked the general story of these kids going to film a documentary about a long lost movie called, surprise surprise, "The Hills Run Red" and finding that the film was, not to give too much away, the real deal. The fact that because these kids are horror fanatics gives it many chances to self reference itself and make fun of its relatively predictable slasher premise. One character even pokes fun at the idea that 'if no one left the city, then no horror movies would occur' as they travel to the woods.
The second thing I dug about this film was some of its concepts. The concept of our killer 'Babyface' whom wears a doll mask is, perhaps not the most original, works more often on the story then not. Not to mention his design was pretty badass. I also dug that this film wasn't afraid to give some of the characters some back story. Some of its rushed (like the odd love triangle that kind of just jumps out of nowhere), but it gave me enough to care about the characters...not a lot, but some.
"The Hills Run Red" had some good scares, some nice gore to add (although they didn't explain the baconized corpses - if you see it you'll understand), and a decent concept to contain it all. This carries it to being a watchable film despite some of its flaws in logic (I'll wear a corpse shirt instead of taking come clean stuff from the corner!), some off beat acting, and an odd ending. I recommend it to fans of independent horror for sure.
Written By Matt Reifschneider
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