It’s
generally a bad thing when a patient hears voices. It’s even worse when they
are real. The slightly agitated Sybil Warren will try convince her highly
skeptical shrink such is true for her. To be fair, she is entitled to be
in-treatment given the trauma she has suffered, but it is a matter of legal commitment
in Warren’s case. Dr. Deluce is in for some tense sessions during Dan Bush’s The Dark Red, which opens this Friday in
Los Angeles.
Warren’s
adopted mother recently died, her husband disappeared, and her baby was taken
from her (by a secret society, she claims). That is a lot for one person to
bear, but she is not a normal person. According to Warren, she has special
psychic powers related to her rare blood type. Calling it “Type X” would
probably be too on the nose, but that is the general idea. She can often hear
people’s thoughts, but instead of a blessing, it has led to life-long issues of
mental stability. Frankly, it is reasonable for Dr. Deluce to assume she is
delusional. Given her twitchiness, viewers might start to suspect the same, but
since this is a horror movie, we can guess there is more than a kernel of truth
to what she says.
In
terms of genre elements, Dark Red is
very much X-Men mixed with Scanners, but the narrative takes a turn
that is very much like Get Out without
the racial dynamics. There is definitely a fair amount of horrifying mayhem,
yet it is a surprisingly quiet film. Even though there are a number of familiar
motifs, Bush and co-screenwriter (and co-star) Conal Byrne recombine them in intriguing
ways.
April
Billingsley is impressively forceful and unpredictable as Warren. It is not
that we doubt her story (because that is what we came for), but we can believe
she is having doubts of her own. She is also quite a power to be reckoned with
during her action scenes. Billingsley’s screen presence nicely compliments and
contrasts with Byrne playing her suspiciously smooth husband, David Hollyfield.
Like a good therapist, Kelsey Scott maintains a professional demeanor that
largely masks who Dr. Deluce might be inside, but Bernard Setaro Clark gives
the film some schlubby soul and conviction as Warren’s understanding doctor
from flashbacks.