Just Watched: The Hills Run Red (2009)

The movie starts with "history" of the lost film

Sometimes horror films, especially modern ones, start with an interesting concept only to lose their way somewhere through the movie. Whether it just gets too repetitive or they throw in a twist or twists that change the entire film, or it becomes too cliched many films end up going from huge potential to another clearance bin movie best left forgotten. The Hills Run Red starts off very promising, but does it deserve a spot in everybody's horror collection??

Hills tells the story of Tyler and his obsession over the lost film that this movie is named after. It was only briefly shown in theaters before it was pulled and never seen or heard of again. The director vanished and never made another film, and the cast was never heard of again. Tyler is able to track down the director's daughter who was involved in the film as a child, and convinces her to take him and his friends to where the movie was shot in hopes that maybe, just maybe, he may be able to track down the film himself.

The only footage remaining of the film was a creepy trailer

The Hills Run Red is a great example of how a movie with great potential can go so horribly wrong. It starts out really well, looking like it will be the best slasher in many, many years. It switches back and forth between the movie itself and "documentary" filming as Tyler and his friends film locations and interview people about the lost movie. It really makes it seem as though this lost film is for real and you really wanna figure out if it is, or if the people in it really died, and why it was pulled from theaters so fast.

The problem with so many horror films these days is they don't wanna come across as an '80s slasher. If the story followed teens on this trip and they all get killed, except one girl, who fights back or escapes it's like it's considered a failure, cliched or unoriginal. So now they force in twists to be "original", but at this point the twists have also become cliched and unoriginal. And this is where The Hills Run Red utterly fails. Halfway through we are given a few predictable, and awful twists that are sure to draw many groans from viewers, and the film eventually descends into "torture porn" territory where the mystery of the killer/s and motivations is gone and we just get boring, unimaginative torture scenes. It's really a shame as the first half of the film was fascinating, the second half, however, was painfully bad.

Babyface is a great addition to slashers, too bad the film isn't

Availability: You can pick up The Hills Run Red on DVD with a commentary, making of and trailer for under $5 used, and should be able to find it for under $10 for a new copy. No release for Blu-ray to date. You can also rent on Amazon Video in the U.S. and U.K.

Despite it's interesting premise The Hills Run Red ultimately falls far short of greatness. If you are into the torture porn sub-genre you may have some fun with this, but if you are expecting a new classic slasher you will be disappointed.

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