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Erica is a damaged and cynical young woman who seeks emotional fulfillment in a steady series of sexual, and often anonymous, encounters. Unable to connect with anybody, aside from a young boy she watches in the park, and suspicious of the intentions of Nate, a kindly loner living in her apartment building, Erica refuses to stray from the path of self-destruction her life is heading down.
When aspiring rock musician Franki is notified by doctors that he’s contracted H.I.V., his dream of a big European tour and a long, prosperous life with his loved ones is destroyed. Wallowing in depression and guilt over the possibility of having infected his mother with a blood transfusion, he and his fellow band members begin trolling the local bars in search of the young woman they all had group sex with several months back.
Now Erica, Franki and Nate will each be forced to reveal their darkest desires and unleash the personal demons that will change their lives forever. No evil deed goes unpunished.
For the most part horror films are fairly easy to identify as the guy in the mask is typically the villain, ghosts are usually just looking to punish the wicked and zombies are…well…dead. They’re not overly complex, most require no Holmesian skills of deduction. Don’t take this to mean that I’m putting down horror and it’s somehow inferior cinema because that’s simply not the case at all, I’m just being honest. Horror comes in all shapes and sizes. Villains don’t always wear masks, sometimes they look just like you and I. They may be the rocker on stage singing his heart out, the loose girl you just met in the bar and took home or a burned-out stranger coming back from fighting a bloody war overseas.
Simon Rumley’s Red, White & Blue is the kind of film that many will write off as nothing more than a thrilling drama dealing with the “dated” topic of H.I.V. but, trust me on this, it is so much more than that. It has all the trademark nudity, dismemberment and torture that make for “entertaining” genre cinema but none of those seem to matter, it’s how Rumley puts it all together that makes this film so damn riveting. The thing I found most horrific was its realism. Can a disease be just as terrifying as a machete? What if you could live with it for years without experiencing any ill effects, all the while passing it along from one lover to another?
Red, White & Blue was absolutely terrifying and not just because it deals with a frightening disease, there’s far more going on in this film than meets the eye and its bound to leave you gasping for air.
This is obviously a low budget production but certainly not in the sense most have become familiar with, the budget may be low but the writing is stellar and the acting highly effective. Everything about it felt “real,” nothing in this film came across too fantastic or out of place. Its about real people, in real places, dealing with real issues so a massive budget wasn’t needed to tell a good story. Rumley utilized the perfect locations, solid cinematography and able actors all to great success. I was particularly impressed with Senter, once again playing another awesome role.
If you’re waiting for the ball to drop and for me to dish on the negatives of this film, you’ll be waiting a very long time. Just as Simon Rumley’s The Living and The Dead has achieved critical success, I believe this will receive just as many accolades because it’s that good. Rent or purchase. I thought it was brilliant and I highly recommend checking this film out.
