Red Victoria (2008, dir:
Tony Brownrigg; cast:
Tony Brownrigg as Anthony Brownrigg, Arianne Martin, Edward
Landers, Joshua Morris, Christian Taylor, Cory Turner, Haven
Riney, John Phelan)
Comedic horror films are a fine balance; too much comedy can
overwhelm and kill the horror. Films that achieve this fine
balance -- films with great laughs and true scares -- include
An
America Werewolf in London,
Re-Animator, and
Evil
Dead.
Red
Victoria fails as horror. It doesn't even try to scare.
Jim (Tony Brownrigg) is a mainstream writer who is
pressured by his agent to writing a horror script. Jim hates
horror, but does it for the money. Along the way, an evil muse
appears in the form of a corpse (zombie?) and kills Jim's friends
and associates to "inspire" Jim.
Some have compared
Red
Victoria to a sitcom. It does feel like a sitcom -- a
bad
sitcom. The music soundtrack is thick with upbeat songs and peppy
tunes. Brownrigg's notion of acting is lots of zany mugging for the
camera. "Ain't this a wacky scene!" he seems to be winking at the
audience.
Jim talks to himself when he's alone in a room, as if he were
Woody Allen, or stuck in a Neil Simon play.
The film is full of clichés, misconceptions, and old satirical
targets. For instance, the cliché of the greedy agent who
pressures a talented writer into doing horror, because it's "a
surefire money-maker." In truth, agents don't need to pressure
mainstream writers to create horror -- horror writers are everywhere.
And the market is glutted with indie horror films seeking distributors.
Hardly a "surefire" money-making genre.
Red
Victoria is also marred by self-indulgence. Since Brownrigg is
the writer, director, producer, and star, nobody on the set held
him back. Almost every scene runs on too long. Several times, I
fast-forwarded, having gotten the gist of yet another "scene that
wouldn't end," and anxious to get on with the story.
Arianne Martin is much better as the muse, because, for whatever
reason, she doesn't mug or overact. She's a subtle foil to
Brownrigg's mugging. But the contrast only makes Brownrigg look
worse.
Christian Taylor has a funny bit role as Blake, Jim's
pseudo-intellectual friend. Taylor delivers his satirical lines
in
deadpan fashion, a funnier choice than Brownrigg's mugging. (The
DVD's special features reveal that Taylor improvised his quips, so
maybe be wasn't too thrilled with the script?)
Yet despite Martin and Taylor's good efforts,
Red
Victoria needs
less of Brownrigg, much less of Brownrigg's mugging, shorter
scenes, and less peppy music. It needs more darkness to balance
the humor.
The first 70-75 minutes are a straight (and unfunny) comedy. Then
about five minutes of romance. And then five minutes of darkness, where
it actually begins to get scary. Then the end credits.
Red
Victoria did get a little
interesting toward the end, as the romance and darkness finally
began to emerge. The film's not so bad, provided you have a
trusty fast-forward button on your DVD remote.
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