[trebor8273]

Originally Posted by keirarts

I have the redeemer on blu-ray.It's a deeply flawed film but I really like it. I put a review up on Amazon back when the DVD was released...


A young boy emerges from a lake while a mysterious stranger kills a man in an abandoned school and begins making a mask of his face. Menwhile the young boy goes to church where he is bullied by his fellow choirboys one of whom has a switchblade! The attempted GBH is halted by the priest who begins his service talking about sins in the modern world. The service is intercut with scenes of various people in their everyday life the sins the priest is discussing meant to apply to the people we see. Everyone it seems is going to a school reunion and its at the same school the mysterious stranger has taken over. (shock.) After about half an hour the slasher movie actually begins as the classmates are murdered one by one and 'redeemed' of their sins by the mysterious killer who has a second thumb on his hand which is posessed. (seriously I'm not making this up.) He has the hand of the redeemer as well as a gift for disguises (which he uses for every murder) and a gift For overracting WAY too much. The film ends with a supposedly profound and meaningful ending but by the end I still had very little clue as to what the film was trying to say. (is it the only bible belt christian slasher movie ever made, or a condemnation of religious extremism?)
I have to admit to not having heard about this film, apparently it has a cult following and has been released on numerous bootlegs over the years under different titles but this is the first official release of the movie, using a scratchy and occasionally hissy 35mm grindhouse print. The film doesent look great but apparently this is as good as its going to get, theres no extras aside from a trailer but knowing code red who released it they probably tried.
The real question is, is the film any good? Well yes and no. The structure is messy, as is some of the editing and the films internal logic makes no sense at all. In one mid picture sequence the killer has to be in two places at once in two seperate and elaborate costumes! The acting is varied to say the least and the whole picture feels very pretencious and poorly paced. Its like the director went out to make the artiest slasher he could, chock full of religious symbolism (at one point the victims are all sat eating in a scene framed like the last supper, Geddit?) and unfortunately fails to do for the slasher pic what messiah of evil Messiah of Evil: Second Coming [DVD] [1973] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] did for the zombie picture. Both films are strange, surreal arty affairs that try to do more with the genre than turn a quick buck, but for my money messiah is shot by someone far more talented. That said, in terms of slasher movies it does stand out from the crowd. Perhaps for the wrong reasons, but its a much more memorable slasher pic than a lot of the stuff that was crowding the early eighties post-halloween marketplace. The film also has some fairly creepy scenes and a pretty disturbing atmosphere some of the time, and at least one entertaining booby-trap killing.
Overall then i'd say give the movie a try, I cannot guarentee you'll like it but its certainly worth watching, especially if like me your a junkie for some of the weird and wild gridhouse fare code red are releasing at the moment.

its your review that made me decide to watch it over werewolf woman, also its the code red release on amazon prime as the code red logo comes up at start.