Red Canyon Starts Dull as Dirt on the Desert Floor
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Although Red Canyon has a passable second half, it cannot overcome the boredom of the first, nor the characters, bizarre story and odd camera work. At least the desert looks pretty.
Written by James “Crypticpsych” Lasome
May 23, 2011
Movie Trailer
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Release: 2008 (Festivals), December 15, 2009 (US DVD), May 23, 2011 (UK DVD)
Directed by: Giovanni Rodriguez
Written by: Giovanni Rodriguez and Laura Pratt
Starring:
Christine Lakin as Regina
Tim Draxl as Devin
Katie Maguire as Terra
Norman Reedus as Mac
Justin Hartley as Tom
Sometime in the past, Devin (Draxl) and his sister Regina (Lakin) head out into the desert caves to meet up with a friend. They stumble upon a freaky looking cave dwelling, seem to get attacked and… the movie flashes forward to present day without actually saying what happened. Now Devin and a visibly still shaken Regina are back, years later, with their college friends including Devin’s girlfriend, Terra (Maguire), and their SPECTACULARLY annoying friend Tom (Hartley). The group appears to be going to their old hometown to stay in an abandoned house and ride dirtbikes (gosh, my college friends must have had no IDEA what fun was). However, while the kids may have moved on to bigger things, the town is still the same rundown, sleazy place it always was with the same lowlifes hanging around such as their violent old friend Mac (Reedus of The Boondock Saints fame). As Regina experiences periodic flashbacks to that mystery traumatic event from her past, she ends up deciding to head back to the cave to try and restore her memory. Unfortunately, Mac and some accomplices are about to make their little vacation a lot more dangerous than they bargained for.
As I watched Red Canyon, I was struck that I’d seen a movie like this before. That movie was Backwoods Bloodbath. In that film, there was a hideously stupid first half filled with annoying characters in which people trekked out to a cabin in the woods. Here, we have an insanely boring first half filled with overemotional characters we don’t care about trekking out to an abandoned house in the desert. In both films, they run afoul of some member of the local townsfolk. Finally, in both films, the second half of the film evolves into an almost-slasher movie via either the “Black Hodag” in Backwoods Bloodbath or the combo of Mac and some strange mask-wearing dude in Red Canyon. Finally, in both cases, the movie gets immeasurably better when that shift happens. Neither one, though, can overcome their first-half missteps.
To be fair, Red Canyon is a better film than Backwoods Bloodbath, particularly on a technical level. Red Canyon, for instance, has perfect sound design and does not suffer from dubbing issues or sound quality flaws. The setting of this film is also literally stunning. If Red Canyon were ever released on blu-ray, the primary reason to see it would be the breathtaking desert vistas. Finally, as much as I’m about to bash the characteristics of the characters themselves, the acting in this film is generally a hair better.
Looking closer at Red Canyon's many flaws, though, the most glaring is that none of the main protagonists are relatable or likeable as written. Regina is too emotional and comes across as a complete basket case, thereby raising the question of why she and Devin came back. Terra, for being Devin’s girlfriend, sure seems to get pissed at him for basically the whole movie. Tom is one of the most annoying, whiny, clichéd pretty-boy characters I’ve ever seen to the point where, when he has his inevitable “eleventh-hour epiphany”, you can hear yourself counting down to his death in your head. Hell, Ankur Bhatt’s performance as “Samir” is the best of them and he, OF COURSE, gets the least screentime! Even the decent characters are messed up! Reedus’s “Mac” is decently sleazy, but is underused and doesn’t seem to have much motivation beyond “he’s sleazy”. The other great character, the late Walter Rodriguez as “Walter”, is an interesting character undone by the film’s plotline and the fact that, for some reason that totally escapes me, the filmmaker thought he needed to subtitle the character’s perfectly understandable, lightly-accented English!
Then there’s plot and editing. There are ways to make movies in which characters try to reclaim their memories. This is not one of them. For 
more than half of Red Canyon we literally have no clue what actually happened to Regina and Devin as all we’re shown are Regina’s bizarre, disconnected flashbacks. Beyond that, we don’t really get scared of much of anything in the first half of the film… just really tired of hanging out with these dull leads. Even when it gets “explained” at the film’s climax, it still doesn’t make complete sense. Of course, let’s not even go into the twist ending part of that climax that comes completely out of left field for no apparent reason. Finally, the editing style of the movie tries its damnedest to wreck the beautiful surroundings by making all of Regina’s flashbacks in unintelligible, music video-style quick cuts and by overreacting to any jump scares or “steadycam” running shots. You are not a found footage movie, Red Canyon. Stop pretending that you are.
Overall, Red Canyon is a mostly technically sound film undone by its wildly uneven two halves. Its first half is mindblowingly boring and introduces protagonists we never relate to or care about. While its second half is more effective and creepier, it never fully recovers what it loses by being so criminally dull for so long.
2 Freak Heads (out of 5)
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