Fandoms are a troublesome thing, to say the least. While there’s an allure in finding like-minded people that you can share your mutual love, the experience is ruined by the hatred spewed by dickheads who consider their entitlement a priority. The Red Mask opens with that hatred in action, resulting from Queer screenwriter Allina Green (Helena Howard) being announced to write a remake of a fictional horror franchise also called The Red Mask.
Any excitement for a remake of this 1982 cult classic is overwhelmed, as Allina sees on her timeline the hatred spewed by assholes who think that the new film will be ruined for “woke” reasons. As she is bombarded with anger, outrage, and death threats, the moment is interrupted by an attacking figure dressed as The Red Mask. While the situation seems dire for Allina, it is soon revealed that this is part of her writing process.
The writer and her fiancée, Deetz (Inanna Sarkis), roleplay the script in order to visualise whether it will work. As the pair work hard in a secluded Airbnb, Allina hopes that this will offer a breakthrough that helps with her writer’s block. However, matters are interrupted by the arrival of two uninvited houseguests (Jake Abel & Kelly Garner) who claim to have also booked the same Airbnb, something that is only the beginning of their dark evening.
For his feature debut, director Ritesh Gupta works from a script by Samantha Gurash and Patrick Robert Young, to offer a meta-approach to slasher films, filmmaking and the writing process is bold. It can admittedly feel difficult to stand out in a field that Wes Craven perfected, but this film sets out its own stall by utilising its protagonist to focus on the undue pressure faced by a Queer woman-of-colour.
Allina just wants to write films for a living, but who she is puts her on a larger pedestal, where failure will ensure that she does not get a second chance. She is left struggling to balance making the studio and franchise fans happy, with little room for her own happiness. This includes her personal life, where she has to keep her career relevant by outing herself and her partner. There is clear love between them, as the cast effectively convey, but the pair struggle to be happy as they feel unable to be unashamedly themselves.
As more figures populate the setting, a focus is cast upon the push and pull battle that unfolds between fans and the series they love. The desire to recapture what they love about the fictional red mask manifests as a series of misunderstandings, instead of finding new ways to propel the series forward and keep it fresh. It is hard to not get flashbacks to The Last Jedi, especially with how fandoms treat changes to their beloved franchise with hostility and bloodlust.
While there are interesting discussions to be had on-screen, it is hard to shake how the original Scream could pull it off without sacrificing any scares or creepiness. One wishes that the same could be said here, but finding that balance is never easy, especially not for a debuting director. At least the kills are terrific, particularly the excellent last one, with each death overcoming any having real impact and not being bogged down by less-than-optimal visual effects. The Red Mask is an effective entry into meta-slasher sub-genre, offering an interesting approach that puts to shame other recent slasher revivals like The Strangers: Chapter One and 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
