We gotta admit, Kevin Smith stuck to his guns on this one. Throughout the “Red State” campaign, the director swore to stick to grassroots marketing and forgo the kind of big budget spend that traditionally accompanies a film’s release. And while there have been a plethora of posters and other material for the project thus far, they’ve all been disseminated online. As for the film, after its raucous premiere at Sundance, Smith toured it around the country with pricey roadshow screenings that he hosted personally, with Q&A sessions after each. All that being said, he’s arguably sold the movie to the exact people who knew about it already — his fans. With the release now around the corner, it’s time to engage everybody else. A full length, potty mouthed trailer has arrived.
It opens with the scene that we saw in clip form before, with Melissa Leo creepily plying three boys with beer before promising to have sex with them. Next thing you know, the boys are caged and being preached to by a crazed Michael Parks and suddenly machine guns and SWAT teams are showing up and shit is blowing up. So yeah, as irritating as Kevin Smith has been lately, this actually looks pretty damn interesting and marks a major shift for the helmer. Our man in Sundance called it “an ambitious, greatly flawed stab at horror” and we can definitely see shades of both elements in play. Thematically, Smith is wrestling with some heavy subjects, but unfortunately, he can’t shy away from quippy one-liners that seem woefully out of place.
Co-starring Kevin Pollak, Kyle Gallner, Michael Angarano, Steven Root, Kerry Bishe and John Goodman, “Red State” goes VOD on Labor Day weekend with special event theatrical screenings happening in October. The film has been shortened from its Sundance version — Smith is said to have whittled down Parks’ speech in the middle of the film, which many said caused the story to grind to a halt. Check out the trailer and new poster below. [Vlicious]
