Our own Casey C. Corpier just sent in a review, hot off the Austin premiere of Kevin Smith’s RED STATE.

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Well it has been one hell of a year (or so, counting 2010) for Kevin Smith. First off he had the well-publicized incident on Southwest Airlines, then he released Cop Out with Bruce Willis, his podcast empire has grown considerably, and now we’ve got his recent controversial flick Red State.

Now I admit that I’ve been following this film for about five years now. I have been a fan of View Askew since working for Blockbuster a little over a decade ago. A lot of people have said that this movie would never be made. The basic question was why a “Comedy Director” was making a Horror Movie, that can’t be done… and I point to John Landis, Joe Dante, and many others. I honestly feel that Horror and Comedy can go together like peanut butter and jelly, pointing to classics like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Shaun of the Dead, and a bevy of others.

Let us talk about the controversies surrounding the movie. First off, many people say that Red State is based on Fred Phelps and the Westborough Baptist Church, who go to funerals protesting the services and celebrate the deceased’s “Banishment to Hell”. The tactics of said church tend to bring the age old debate of how far can the first amendment can go. Needless to say the Phelps family even appeared at the Sundance Film Festival Premiere of Red State to protest Smith and his movie, only to be met by a counter protest of 200 Kevin Smith fans.

That brings us to the biggest controversy with Red State. Smith announced at Sundance that he was going to tour with the film and then release it himself under the Smodcast label. That announcement has been highly debated by the movie and internet community. When the tour came to Texas, my friends and I were there. The evening began with Smith introducing the film and interacting with the audience. After the screening Smith comes out again and has an almost two-hour Q&A. Here he talks about the film and the reasons behind his decision to release it himself. The cost for a ticket is about $70, but is well worth the price for true fans of Kevin Smith.

Now on to the flick.

The story is about three teenagers that live in a small town, in which a fundamental preacher and his family are frequently seen protesting funerals for men and boys who were killed in a recent spree of hate crimes committed in the community. One night some young men respond to an ad on a website to have a foursome with a woman in the area. In the process they are dragged into the inner sanctum of the Church, and have to fight for their lives while the ATF are preparing to invade the compound, in hopes of avoiding a public incident like Waco.

This is by no means a “feel good” flick. Smith even said when he introduced the film that this is not a “Kevin Smith” movie… and he was right. It’s a Kevin Smith movie for the first 10 minutes, then it has the feel of a Rob Zombie Film. I generally enjoyed the movie, that is to say I liked it. Another interesting aspect of the picture is that there’s no score the only music is the singing that Michael Parks does in select scenes. Like I said, the film had a gritty nerve-invoking feel to it, the camera work was much different than most of Smith’s other movies, with shaky cam effect and jump cuts and a lot of extreme close-ups, and running with the action shots. I honestly was frightened by it, when you see the villains in the flick and how far they actually go, and in the fact that they really believe that they were doing what was right.

I would definitely recommend this flick to the Hostel and Saw crowd.

11 Dead Bodies

4 Breasts (on computer screens)

7 Beasts

2 Shootouts

1 Shot to the eye

7 Shots to the head

Heads Explode

Cult FU

Teen FU

ATF FU

3 1/2 Stars

Check it out

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