Red Velvet
By Sharon Foss
I have a pile of movies that my beautiful Horror Chick friend (Heather Wixson) has given me to review. I am…shall we say…a bit behind. After scanning my titles, my eyes fall upon 2008’s Red Velvet with one of my favorite actors, Henry Thomas.
Director Bruce Dickson and writer Anthony Burns bring a tale of a lonely man, Aaron (Henry Thomas) who finally meets his hot apartment neighbor Linda (Kelli Garner), who both embark on the “I can’t stand you” banter when they meet up at the laundry mat. Aaron antagonizes Linda to the point of frustration. You see, Linda is in abusive relationship that is volatile. Aaron, being the good neighbor, gets to hear all their fights, and feels free to tell Linda all about them, while criticizing her choice in men and lifestyle.
Before long, Aaron has gotten into Linda’s head. While she may not like hearing how typical she is of a blonde woman with a meathead boyfriend who treats her bad, she can’t help but listen as he spins all the idiosyncrasies of her typical life into short slasher films. Her friends, her boyfriend—they all fit into a teen flick. Skinny dipping, cabin in the deep woods…you know the story. But Aaron weaves his tales both to amuse this woman he finds so appealing, and to show her who he truly is.
So what is this movie about? A little bit of everything. It is the witty dialogue of Kevin Smith’s Clerks, where the set and plot are simple, i.e., two convenience store clerks pondering life or as in Red Velvet, two neighbors pondering a more exciting life while stuck at a laundry mat. It is the bloodbath of just about any teen flick in a cabin in the woods, or a non-parental controlled house like Halloween or Friday the 13th.
What Red Velvet truly embodies is a satire along the likes of Scream, but better. It keeps and uses wisely the darkness that lurks beneath the smirking satirical story. It’s the darkness of the movie, while hard to see at times, that makes this “satire” worthwhile.
https://www.redvelvetmovie.com/
