Red Sands is a decided step back for director Alex Turner who previously helmed decent cult horror pic 'Dead Birds' with Henry Thomas. I give him points for mixing things up by setting a horror film in contemporary Afghanistan but that's unfortunately where the points end.
Reteaming with Dead Birds screenwriter Simon Barrett who seem to have found a wartime horror niche ('Dead Birds' being set during the Civil War), this time they try to tackle our existing situation by following a small group of American soldiers in Afghanistan circa 2002.
The best thing about the films comes early on in the form of J.K Simmons (whose credit on the cover is a bit deceiving as he's literally in the film for only a few minutes) as a general who is grilling a soldier, Jeff (Shane West), about a disastrous mission that only he survived. Yep, the bulk of the film is told in flashback for no particular reason.
The mission was for a handful of soldiers to watch over a road the Taliban had been using from the vantage point of an abandoned, run-down shack in the Afghan desert. When the soldiers upset a 'Djinn' spirit (reasonably explained in the opening credits) when shooting an ancient statue for target practice, the spirit shows up out of the desert as a lost Afghan woman.
Taking her in, she slowly consumes the soldiers one by one, both physically and mentally. And that's pretty much it. The premise is fine, even uniquely inspired, to set a horror film in a land where real-life horrors are being committed but there's really only about thirty minutes of story here.
There's tons of uninteresting jaw-flapping between soldiers as the filmmakers apparently didn't have the budget to provide more than one or two set-pieces and had to fill 90 minutes with something.
A horror film about a handful of men in a contained area can turn out great (John Carpenter's 'The Thing' being a prime example) but the script, locations and cast have to be particularly sharp - which is not the case here.
The bulk of the cast is mediocre with headliner Shane West being merely capable but providing little else. Another sore spot is the effects work which looked notably short-shifted; nothing drains tension more than laughable CGI.
The film is presented with a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that may or may not look intentionally bad with tons of grain. Special Features include some 'Deleted Scenes', two featurettes, 'The Screenwriter Diaries: The Making Of' and 'Red Sands Set Tour with Noel G.' and a feature-length commentary with director Alex Turner and writer Simon Barrett.
This is mostly a waste of a good premise but there are some okay moments before the CGI sets in. Certainly, a little more J.K. Simmons couldn't have hurt. You get some decent special features and tons of Sony horror trailers (Grudge 3, Boogeyman 3, Librarian 3, Anaconda 3, The Messengers 2 and Screamers 2...sense a pattern?) so considering straight to DVD horror pics, one could easily do worse but go in with expectations extremely lowered.
Red Sands is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a March 2nd release. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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