Last week we fell behind when the trailer and poster for IFC’s “Red Riding” Trilogy — a triptych of films that center around the manhunt for the “Yorkshire Ripper,” a serial killer who terrorized northwest England in the 1970s and ’80s — was released. Well, now we have a good excuse to catch up and post them.
Written by Tony Grisoni (Terry Gilliam collaborator on “Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas” and the upcoming ‘Quixote’ re-do), and adapted from novels by David Peace, the trio of films were directed by Julian Jarrold (“Brideshead Revisited”), James Marsh (“Man on Wire”), and Anand Tucker (“Shopgirl”) and they sound like a pretty epic event (Ridley Scott apparently already wants to remake them).
One of our writers in the U.K. saw them earlier this year and raved about them, so we’ve been pretty stoked ever since.
The good news for some of us, those in New York anyhow (four members of The Playlist), is that IFC Films will be releasing the Red Riding: Special Roadshow Edition for one week only starting February 5 exclusively at the IFC Center in Manhattan. It’s a 305-minute presentation, essentially five hours.
That basically means all three films in one long-ass sitting, ala the road-show that IFC put on for Steven Soderbergh’s epic, two-part “Che” films in late 2008/early 2009 (a mere 235 minutes by comparison).
The films star excellent British talent like Andrew Garfield, Sean Bean, Warren Clarke, Rebecca Hall, Eddie Marsan, David Morrissey, Peter Mullan, Paddy Considine, Maxine Peake, Mark Addy and Daniel Mays. We can’t wait and yes, we’re just sick enough to sit through all three of them in one shot.