Have you been good boys and girls this year? Have you spent the last few days wishing and hoping that a bearded, jolly man would be bringing you goodies? Well, forget Santa Claus – Kevin Smith has decided to jump the gun on him and shoved the **Red State **teaser trailer online for us to enjoy.
Of course, given the harsh subject matter, “enjoy” might not quite be the word. “Experience” – that fits. From the jagged, jumping, handicam footage to the haunting intonation of Michael Parks’ Abin Cooper, this brief look at the movie makes it clear that we’re in very different Smith territory. The writer/director and cinematographer David Klein have pushed themelves into new territory and the result looks both scary and impressive.
Smith has been fairly reserved in revealing much of Red State’s plot, but we do know this – it starts out as the story of three high-school numbskulls (Kyle Gallner, Michael Angarano and Nicholas Braun) who go on a road trip to visit a woman promising sex on a website. But then they fall afoul of Cooper and his warped fundamentalist clan, and that’s when the horror really starts. Don’t go expecting an overabundance of trademark Smith quips or puns – the focus is on psychological terror.
Chances are you might have heard the audio portion on Smith’s **Red State **podcast series (you can find more about them in our blog), but now it’s the time to put images to the disconcerting sound of Parks preaching.
The movie will get its premiere at this year’s Sundance film festival on January 23, where distribution rights will be auctioned off. So hopefully we might get to see the film before 2011 is out.