Review

A group of student Doctors are partying hard at one of the local bars, which I think was owned by one of their number. Naturally also making the scene is Kenneth, a stuttering janitor who has some serious problems after witnessing his mother, a prostitute, coming unstuck at the hands of a violent client. Seems Kenneth likes to film corpses on his mobile phone while cutting himself. Kenneth has caught a few other things on his phone, like Catherine and friends, oh and student Doctor Shaun getting drugs from the Hospital pharmacy through nefarious means.

Naturally as the drinks and drugs flow, got to be happy with Doctors the next generation, Kenneth makes the scene and is routinely told to piss off in no uncertain terms. Naturally would be Doctor Shaun goes a bit far and Kenneth stammers out that he has film of Shaun hitting the pharmacy for some drug action. Fearing the Hospital's no tolerance policy Shaun hatches a plan to feed Kenneth up on drugs and alcohol, hence weirdly believing that Kenneth won't report them.

One thing leads to another and Kenneth ends up in a coma due to a mixture of alcohol, drugs, and flashing lights (epilepsy don't you know). Naturally our group of good looking future Doctors dump him outside the emergency ward and high tail it. With things looking bleak on the Kenneth front Catherine dopes him up on an experimental drug, then things really start happening as Kenneth finds he can leave his body, possess other people, and exact his revenge on the hopeful Doctors of the future. With the body count mounting can Catherine determine how to resolve the situation or will Kenneth's bloody rampage continue?

Director Paddy Breathnach gets this pound puppy out on a leash in particular good fashion. The opening scene is tensioned laced, brutal, and lensed in particularly realistic fashion. There's almost a clinical, no pun intended, intensity to things that I was immediately sitting up and taking notice of. Breathnach spends the first block of the movie introducing us to Kenneth, a janitor working at Forthaven General Hospital who no doubt deserves the nickname Freakdog, given to him by our caring and sharing group of young wannabe Doctors, a character who needs to see a Psychiatrist stat yo! Using flashbacks to flesh out Kenneth's current activities down the morgue, the scene ends better than I expected but in more gruesome fashion. I should note here that Director Breathnach following Neil Marshall's example doesn't use gore for gore's sake, but hits it to underline his scenes. We also learn that Kenneth likes to film Catherine and her friends, and hovers like a satellite around their high octane orbit. The demise of Kenneth closes out the first act with the sort of action that isn't likely to see a number of characters survive to the end credits. Breathnach here ensures the Audience, already concerned with where things might be going in Spence Wright's excellent script, is aware of how self-serving the young Doctors are in their actions to cover up the situation they have caused by their own callous handling of the situation.

For mine the second block of the movie was the most affective with Breathnach and Wright exploring the dynamics of Catherine's group and the various reactions to events different group members have to their night of remorse. Shaun seems less effected and continues in his self-centered approach to life, Jake while remorseful seems more concerned about his John Hopkins scholarship, and Catherine is truly harbouring guilt over their actions, wanting to come clean to Authorities. Kim, Harriet, Yoshimi, and Steve seem at best ambivalent but clearly don't want to risk the ire of the Hospital authorities and the no leniency approach to wrong doers. Catherine goes out of her way to study up on coma patients, after Doctor Harris informs her of his intention to turn off Kenneth's life support, which leads of course to the phase one drug NNZ-4924. Since the drug hasn't been tested on human patients no one knows the likely side effects though clinical trials are very promising. Catherine, showing the sort of moral decision making that must be worrying for patients of the UK medical system, decides to administer the drug as Kenneth is gonzo anyway. Awesome, and did I detect a slight attack on the Heath System here from scribe Spence Wright?

Finally a horror movie that doesn't treat the Audience like brain dead morons.

The final block of the movie is of course the one that most horror fans of the North American demographic are dialling in for, the brown stuff hits the fan and Kenneth goes Patrick on us to devastating effect. Seems the drug that Catherine rushed to administer does have a side effect no one expected, Kenneth can have these out of body experiences where he can possess other people! Notably the possession goes down accompanied by nose bleeds. Naturally since Kenneth happens to be slightly upset by his previous treatment, he starts whittling down Catherine's crew one by one in time honoured horror fashion. Unfortunately for gorehounds while we do get a couple of well-constructed murder scenes Director Breathnach isn't making a slasher flick, the knife is kept in the dark and Kenneth goes about his business mainly off scene as Catherine gradually realises what she has to do to stop a paranormal force that threatens to send them all to hell. I'm not giving away the climax here, let's just say it follows the sort of ending that made those 1970s serious horror outings rock.

Breathnach is across Red Mist in stunning style presenting the sort of movie that true horror fans should be high fiving the invisible presences in their lounge rooms over. Okay it probably isn't going to work for most teen North Americans, brought up on a diet of hamburger movies by the Hollywood factory system, but then again it isn't aimed at them. Red Mist is the sort of movie that re-ignites your belief in the dark genre as a legitimate form of cinema. It's serious, doesn't waste time on crap gore scenes, and has something subversive to say in amongst the bloodletting.

There are any number of scenes that rocked my world, making me really want to spend Saturday hunting down Breathnach's previous movie Shrooms. In the scene where Kenneth goes table top funnel drinking, idea reprised later in the movie, actor Andrew Lee Potts (Kenneth) nails the only fleeting moment in the movie where Kenneth is truly happy. Breathnach is breathtaking in capturing the character's feeling, which of course adds gravitas to Kenneth's ultimate path of revenge. Equally Catherine waking up in her undies in a wood, with no idea of what has happened to her, is simply horror gold rivalling any scene from classic dark genre history. The phone call she receives is the icing on the cake here, devastating for female viewers I'm sure and definitely a shock for this Reviewer. I could go on, the shadow in the Hospital corridor that Nurse Shelby investigates, and the setup and delivery on Doctor Harris' fatal decision underlying that Breathnach knows what he's about in the Director's chair.

Stephen Warbeck added an ominous score to proceedings that effectively underlined the tension laced attack on the audience Director Breathnach is launching in convincing style.

There's a few influences seeping into the movie that are worth noting. Besides the obvious debt to Aussie shocker Patrick, I was picking up a The Grudge vibe happening, and a Cronenberg sensibility to the Hospital scenes.

While the movie contains one hell of a good cast I would point out Artelle Kebbel (Catherine) and Andrew Lee Potts (Kenneth) as standouts. Kebbel just has it happening, why isn't this chick headlining more horror movies? - we all knew Potts could act following his work in the Brit Sci-Fi series Primevil, but in Red Mist he's kicking it big time.

Sorry well over the word limit here trying to wrap it. I wasn't sure what to expect when Red Mist hit my review pile, I must admit to not having caught up with Shrooms yet, but I got one hell of a surprise. While the movie does have the odd weak moment, why on earth did they keep trying to pretend events were set in the U.S with all those Brit accents going down, those moments aren't enough to void your enjoyment of an above average horror flick. Full recommendation to serious fans, I had the time of my life and am indebted to Director Breathnach for reminding me just what horror is all about. A serious horror movie that will have you feeling very nervous about just what might happen to our young Doctors. Expect the worse people.

Naturally Red Mist didn't get a cinema thing happening Downunder, why show quality horror when you can throw filtered Hollywood fare at people, but the DVD will be hitting shelves in February from the good folk at Icon, who are really hitting some very decent dark genre product currently. I don't have the finalised DVD specifications, though you do get a trailer for Shark Night 3D, yo shark movies a guilty pleasure over here, fingers crossed for another excellent Icon release. Get down tonight and mark Red Mist down as must watch material going forward.