Director: Ryan Coonan
Year: 2024
Country: Australia
Alternate Titles: The Red
Genre: Creature Feature; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
Following a string of bizarre deaths, the head of a small town’s local wildlife preservation unit tries to put the strained relationship with her dead father aside to deal with the strange animal responsible, and when they discover the culprit to be a zombified kangaroo tries to stop it.
Review:
This was a fun if somewhat problematic creature feature. The main feature of this one is the rather strong setup that allows for a nice bit of world-building inside this community. Featuring the usual assortment of quirky small-town residents that populate this kind of story with the group of locals that are fully fleshed-out and lived in who know each other quite well, this allows for a great supporting group that can bend around the central premise of the relationship issues causing a strain to her job. Trying to overcome the stigma of what happened in the past with the struggle of trying to keep the town safe during this latest series of attacks, this sets up a compelling mystery following the bizarre attacks and some immensely fun action in the second half that gives this a lot to like.
There are some big factors that hold this one down. One of the biggest detrimental features is the clear lack of appropriate tone throughout here where it takes itself way too seriously for what’s going on. The idea of such an audacious premise involving a zombified kangaroo running loose in a small town community of quirky locals requires such a wild series of setpieces to constantly up the ante with how the creature plays out the rampage. However, here we get far too much melodrama about the family relationship that takes up the centerpiece of the film where it’s really hard to stay invested in the storyline when it doesn’t focus on the killer kangaroo rampaging across town that it really struggles to maintain the wildness of what’s going on.
The other big drawback to this one is the ensuing lack of creature action that comes about when it does decide to focus on the creature action. Several scenes are chilling in their concept and setup, mainly involving the team out in the wilderness who get the hint that something is out there but not sure if anything’s happening that tends to dominate the admittedly fun second half, but that’s the extent of this one. This one never lets the wild action promised in the setup come to fruition and far too many of the previous rampage scenes are done off-screen rather than deal with anything on-screen as the kills are barely featured until the end and a majority are brief flashes rather than anything else. These factors are all enough to bring this one down.
Overview: **/5
A massive missed opportunity of a creature feature, there’s still enough to like here that it’s somewhat enjoyable but gets brought down quite a bit by some big issues. This is really only for those that are curious about this kind of creature feature while most others out there should heed caution with this one.
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