Red Hook (2009)

Red Hook (2009)

Red Hook is a slightly more independent film that was both written and directed by newcomer Elizabeth Lucas. Elizabeth has a couple other smaller titles under her belt but this is the first that I believe was able to get any meaningful distribution and I'm glad it was able to see the light of day. I'm going to start off by saying that this is not a great movie. Wait. Don't run away quite yet. Just because it doesn't bring anything overly original to the table does not however mean it is a bad movie because quite frankly it's not.

We open with the film watching a young girl named Jenny (who when grown up is played by Christina Brucato, an actress who really should get more rolls in horror films) watch her older sister be brutally murdered right before her eyes. Well of course this is a great reason for her to grow up and become partially agoraphobic. Fortunately though it's not so severe that she can never leave her room as she is away at college and while she tries to go out as little as possible outside of classes what fun would that be for a movie? (Actually a slasher trying to stalk an agoraphobic person through a giant house could be a ton of fun...)

Jenny's roommate, Angela(Hollis Scarborough), is a theater major and at first tries to be friends with Jenny, quickly gets bored with her, then becomes interested in using her as a character model when she finds out about her sister's killing. She's a pest through most of the film and while she provides some plot movement the main source comes from a young man named Gavin (Tate Ellington) that she develops a relationship with. Gavin also had a death in the family when he was young so she is able to relate to him and they both just click when getting to know each other. He is able to partially break through her agoraphobia and is even able to talk her into joining a scavenger hunt that the entire floor is going to be participating in.

The entire scavenger hunt is being filmed to be a reality TV show promotion, however someone involved in the hunt has a hunting idea of their own. This is where the movie finally picks up as one by one each of the participants are slowly killed and as the cast is narrowed down so is the identity of the killer. The killer quickly both takes over the show and starts leaving clues of his own to motivate them to act out what he wants to see happen.

Red Hook may be a highly predictable movie to many horror fans out there. It is very much a slasher that follows the classic formula and while you aren’t going to have a lot of surprises watching the film you WILL have fun watching the film. I would say the perfect scenario for checking this one out is with a group of friends (preferably in a night made just for watching horror films) to be able to harass any of your mutual friends who jump or to just have a good time while guessing what's coming next.