Coming to DVD Tuesday, February 10th
Cast:
Arielle Kebbel as Catherine
Sarah Carter as Kim
Stephen Dillane as Dr. Harris
Alex Wyndham as Jake
Andrew Lee Potts as Kenneth
Martin Compston as Sean
Directed by Paddy Breathnach
Review:
Work hard, play hard. We have all heard the expression. For the medical students at Forthaven General Hospital, it is the only way to live. So when school is out and it is time to unwind, they head over to a local bar and ingest copious amounts of alcohol and narcotics. It appears to be something they do on a regular basis.
In the movies this is type of behavior usually comes back to haunt people. This is the case with Red Mist, formerly known as Freakdog.
The medical students in question include Catherine (Arielle Kebbel, who is also in the upcoming The Uninvited). On this particular night of debauchery, Kenneth (Andrew Lee Potts), a janitor at the hospital, has followed the group due to his enormous crush on Catherine. Of course the other students do not take kindly to the presence of Kenneth, who stammers when he speaks and seems to be a little slow. They torment him mercilessly and instruct him to leave them alone.
Kenneth almost complies before deciding to enact some payback. His cell phone camera has been recording their actions all night. As one of the future doctors mentions, the drugs they have been taking were stolen from the hospital pharmacy. If this is discovered all of them will immediately be dismissed from school. To save themselves they have Kenneth join the fun, making sure to film him consuming liquor and drugs. This way he will not rat on them.
When it all goes horribly wrong, Kenneth ends up in a coma. Soon someone (or something) begins picking off the students. It looks like revenge for Kenneth, but who else knows the truth?
While the central idea behind the killings is an interesting one, for the most part Red Mist plays out like writer Spencer Wright was using a cliché checklist. There is always one asshole in the group who demands their silence and rambles on and on about not going to jail and not ruining their lives. Then there is the lone voice of reason, the protagonist, whose plea to do the right thing is always overruled in the end. The rest are sheep easily led astray. They do what the asshole tells them to.
In addition to good-girl Catherine and asshole Sean (Martin Compston), there is the token love interest, the party girl, a Goth girl and a serious Asian girl. Each is one-dimensional and bland.
An even bigger problem is the fact that none of them is remotely believable as a medical student. They seem way too young and foolish. Though we see them play hard, there is little work. None seems to take what they are doing seriously, as if it is merely an undergraduate class sophomore year. It is also highly unlikely that a group of medical students would routinely steal narcotics from the hospital pharmacy (and get away with it).
When the bodies start dropping around the halfway point, there are a few scenes that will induce some squirming. One involves acid and a funnel while another has someone cutting their body with broken glass. However, nothing really unexpected happens. The students start dying. Catherine tries to figure out what is going on. When she does no one believes her.
Kebbel and co-star Sarah Carter are easy on the eyes and the great Stephen Dillane (Spy Game) shows up for what must have been about a day of filming. It is also nice to see Compston, star of 2002âs superb Sweet Sixteen. They just arenât given anything to work with or much to do.
While much of the medical jargon went over my head, the effectiveness and morality of experimental regenerative drugs in coma patients is a good subject for a genre flick, something a little out of the ordinary. Sadly it isnât given much attention and feels like an afterthought. Once again an intriguing concept takes a back seat to boring young people.
