Kevin Smith scares with Red State thumpers

By Stone Martindale Apr 7, 2007, 20:08 GMT

Kevin Smith - Hollywood, CA © Glenn Harris / Photorazzi

Who isn't scared by any venom spewing irrational types that seem to be proliferating these days, just ask filmmaker Kevin Smith, whose next horror project will feature a character based on one of the scariest of all the born again preachers, Fred Phelps.

Smith was interviewed about a project in development called "Red State" by the Rotten Tomatoes website.  Phelps will be a key character influence; the fiery preacher is famous for picketing soldier's funerals and citing America's tolerance for homosexuals as due payback for their deaths.

Smith said:  "That dude has always fascinated me and he's really informed the horror movie that I'm working on. The movie's called 'Red State' and it's very much about that subject matter, that point of view and that position taken to the absolute extreme. It's certainly not Phelps himself but it's very much inspired by a Phelps figure."

"To me there's all kinds of horror, and killing someone's not the absolute worst thing you could do to another human being," he said to Rotten Tomatoes, "The death in a horror movie has always been the money shot in a very exploitative manner. Stabbing somebody and splashing blood all over them is the equivalent to some dude exploding over some broad's face...

"...there's even something more insidious than him (Phelps) that lurks out there in as much as a public or a government that allows it and that's the other thing that I'm trying to examine in a big, big way... it's also not a very traditional horror movie in the sense that people have been asking me, 'Is it a slasher movie? Is it like the Japanese horror flicks?' It'd be much easier to just show it to them when I'm done and be like, 'This is what I meant.' At which point I'm sure there'll be people saying, 'This ain't a horror movie!' But to me, it is."
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