(Not So) Crappy horror movie reviews Thursday: The Red Skulls (2005)

The Red Skulls

After a gang fight gone bad, Red Skulls gang leader Uri sees his best friend slain by the rival gang. After Uri comes to his senses and decides to leave the gang and the city, newly appointed gang leader Lester doesn't plan on letting Uri leave so easy. The gang turns on Uri, and sets up a gang meeting with plans on taking down Uri before he can leave. When Uri decides to break into the gang house to rescue his brother, all hell breaks loose. He soon finds out that his former friends are no longer as they once were, they are now flesh-eating zombies more intent on eating each other, than getting rid of the rival gang-- "The Rats".




I really liked the story telling of this movie. It starts off like "The Warriors" or even "Fight Club", and then changes plot mid movie to be a weird 28 Days Later/Night Of The Living Dead zombie movie. The movie had some really good gore for being a low-budget movie, with some pretty alright acting. The girls were all cute, and the characters were all people that I personally could relate to. The story was very easy to follow, and very easy to get caught up in. The directing and script was also solid with some really great crane-style shots. I was thoroughly impressed with the movie.

With any low-budget movie you get the same faults. Bad acting (although the acting wasn't too bad), limited budget (which can effect a lot of shots), and then we have the characters. Many low-budget directors believe that casting your friends in movies is a bad idea, and usually is. With the bad acting performances in this movie being pretty few and far between, I think it effected the overall quality and outcome of the movie. I really like Speed Freak movies, but I also feel that they could do a better job casting them. Lastly, the biggest complaint is that the story, although I loved it, really didn't peak like I thought it would. The climax was not horrible, but I really expected something different. Again, the budget of the movie probably effected this and dealing with the movie that we are, I would still give it a B-.

Comparing this movie to the first 2 Compound Pictures movies (Demon Summer and Midnight Skater) this movie looks like a masterpiece. Each movie they made got progressively better, and this is easily their best at the time only to be eclipsed by the crime action/drama 16mm masterpiece Cordoba Nights. Things that the previous two lacked are corrected in this movie. Acting got better, directing got 100 times better, the script is more solid than both combined and the cinematography and shots/angles were great in this movie. The movie came out looking like a professional mid-budget movie because of it. I really recommend this movie for any zombie movie fan.