The Hills Run Red: A pretty decent slasher flick that flies in the face of many horror movie conventions with a pretty fun premise. Essentially, the movie is about a film buff named Tyler who becomes obsessed with the horror movie "The Hills Run Red", an 80s slasher flick that supposedly was only shown one time in some obscure movie house and all its prints were destroyed. He has a "grindhouse" type movie trailer as the only evidence the movie existed. There's plenty of lore, such as the apparent disappearance of the movie's creator (Concannon) and the entire cast, etc. The only one alive is Alexa (Sophie Monk), Concannon's daughter who is now working as a drug addicted stripper. (Yes!!)
Anyway, Tyler tracks down Alexa, detoxes her, and he, his girl friend Serina, his guy friend Gabe trek into the woods with Alexa to find her "old house" were the movie was made. Do I have to say that they find exactly what they were looking for and quite few things they weren't?? Ha!
GIMP Scenes: Sophie Monk is tied naked except for a skimpy pair of thong panties, spreadeagle tied to a bed with a ball gag in her mouth. It's a "blink and you'll miss it scene" and she's found by the "hero" and "rescued" in the scene.
The down side, is she's in on it, and this is a set up for the hero. There are two more interesting scenes in the movie. The first appears about 35 minutes into it as a flashback for the movie "The Hills Run Red" which it turns out are "REAL"... Anyway, a poor young lady finds herself in a horrid position... She's wearing short shorts and a white tank top. HOOKS are stuck in each shoulder blade and she's suspended from a tree branch from them.... ouch!
Her wrists are secured spread out to each side by BARBED WIRE... long shots on the wrists and shoulders. Hooks are also attached very graphically through the tops of her feet, attached to loose chains which are very well spiked to the ground. The tree branch she is hanging from has been bent down by a rope and tied that way with a rope, which the killer slowly cuts. She's gagged, but she's screaming as her eyes go wide as the rope begins to fray. Eventually, the rope is cut, the tension snaps and she's jerked upward, which rips her apart at the shoulder blades... her head, shoulders, backbone and entrails fly up, while her arms and legs keep the rest of her well secured. Graphically shown!!
In a later scene, Serina escapes from Babyface by jumping into a barrel of blood and guts and submerging herself in it!! Nice. Afterwards, she goes to where the bodies of previous victims are hanging and steals a nasty dress off one of the corpses. She takes off her clothes (we only get to see her strip to her bra.... which she removes... and we see the panties hit the floor. She just manages to get the dress on, when the killer returns. So, apparently, at this point, the only thing she's wearing is this old dress. Interesting.
The other scene has our heroine (Serina), still in that dress in a shed, tied bent over a table, her wrists secured to the ground by barbed wire, her legs spread by chains. Not much skin here, and while it's not exactly clear if she's raped or not, apparently Babyface does complete the deed due to the "surprise ending".
From a purely slasher movie fan perspective this is one of the best scenes I've seen in a while. Serina tries to "psych out" Babyface by singing "hush little baby". The killer has this baby face doll mask on, with his skeletal jaw jutting from beneath, and an alphabet block necklace and tends to act child like... so this seems reasonable for her to try. In fact, Babyface seems to respond to it... stroking her hair, bobbing his head as if intrigued. That is until she forgets the rest of the song. "I, um... don't remember all the words..."
Then, in Babyface's only line in the entire movie, he looks her in right in the eyes, and deadpans in the most normal sounding voice, "You can keep singing if it'll make you feel better."
Her eyes go wide and she screams her head off, and Babyface slams the door shut. (essentially cutting us out of the rape) Cut scene. Bravo. The "child like" killer ain't so child like. For me, this was a laugh out loud moment for the way it flew in the face of typical slasher movie conventions (i.e. The deformed killer is a mindless dolt).
She escapes by pulling her hands out of the barbed wire after the killer leaves the room. She apparently comes to a bad end quickly in a later scene, but unfortunately for her she doesn't die (see below).
Sophie Monk shows a lot of tit and ass in this movie, and overall its not a bad slasher flick. It's filled with blood and gore, and the ending is left open for a sequel...
I give this one a B+ because overall it's not a bad gore flick. It intentionally plays into many slasher movie conventions leading you to think one thing, but then gives it a neat little twist. Like when Sophie Monk is torturing one of the guys (and filming it for "the Movie". This scene switches back and forth with Serina's rape scene). He's tied to a chair, ball gagged, and she had a razor just gleefully tearing into his guts. Her father walks in, sees it and screams, "What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm making the movie daddy!" Alexa looks up with a smile, covered in her victim's blood.
Concannon: "Typical. Actors trying to direct... this is just some torture show!" Concannon then removes the guy's ball gag, and the guy starts sobbing, pleading to be let go and for them to stop torturing him.
Concannon adjusts the camera to get a close up and gleefully proclaims, "Now that's theater! That's horror!"
Classic.
Besides, Sophie Monk gets naked, she's tied to a bed, and the tree branch scene is nakedly vicious and original. Not bad for a mainstream entry. Also, don't stop the movie once the end credits roll or you'll miss the scene that really made this movie for me, and sets up for the sequel. While only implied during the initial scene, It appears that "baby face" actually did rape the girl while she was bent over the table, as she's several months pregnant in this scene. Alexa comes into a room that appears to be a shed of some type. Serina looks bad here, dirty, chain full spread eagled to the bed and pregnant. Alexa says, "She has something for the baby" and sets the baby face mask next to Serina. Serina struggles nicely and screams her head off. Resume end credits as the sequel has been properly set up...
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