Red State is a 2011 American horror thriller film written, edited, and directed by Kevin Smith. The film stars Michael Angarano, Kerry Bishé, Nicholas Braun, Kyle Gallner, John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Michael Parks, Kevin Pollak, and Stephen Root. The story follows three teenage boys who are lured by an online ad for group sex to a fundamentalist Christian compound led by an extremist pastor, who traps and plans to execute them.
Red State had its premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2011, and was released in the United States on video on demand on September 1 and in select theaters for a one-night-only engagement on September 23 by Lionsgate. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.
Plot Teenagers Travis, Jarod, and Billy Ray drive to meet a woman named Sarah in response to an invitation for group sex. Along the way, they accidentally sideswipe the parked vehicle of Sheriff Wynan as Wynan is engaged in sex with another man. Wynan returns to the station and tells his deputy Pete to look for the vehicle involved.
Sarah tricks the boys into drinking drugged beer, and they pass out. Jarod wakes up in a covered cage and realizes he is inside Five Points Trinity Church, a fanatically conservative church, after he identifies church leader (and Sarah's father) Abin Cooper. Cooper begins a long, hate-filled sermon. His followers ritually murder a captive gay man and drop him into a crawl space where Travis and Billy Ray are bound together. Cooper begins preparing Jarod to be murdered in the same way, but stops when he notices Pete driving up to the church.
Travis and Billy Ray manage to cut themselves free, but are overheard by Sarah's husband, Caleb. Travis fails to escape his bonds, so Billy Ray abandons him. Caleb chases Billy Ray into a room stocked with weapons, where the two shoot each other. Pete hears the gunshots and calls Wynan for back-up, but is shot and killed by Cooper's son Mordechai. Cooper blackmails Wynan, telling him to stay away or he will reveal Wynan's bisexuality to his wife. Wynan calls Agent Joseph Keenan of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who begins setting up outside the church.
Travis breaks free, arms himself and plans to shoot the congregation, but witnesses Jarod being held captive in the church. Travis instead flees the church, but is mistaken for a member by Wynan and shot. Keenan tries to reason with the group, but Cooper shoots an ATF agent. A shoot-out erupts and Wynan is killed. The ATF orders Keenan to stage a full military raid on the church to eliminate all witnesses. Keenan passes the order on to ATF Agent Harry, who refuses.
During the shoot-out, Sarah's daughter Cheyenne escapes and is captured by an ATF agent. Sarah kills him as he is about to shoot Cheyenne. Cheyenne returns to the house and frees Jarod, begging him to help her hide the congregation's children. He refuses and she attacks him. Sarah attacks Jarod, and Cheyenne accidentally shoots and kills Sarah. Jarod decides to help Cheyenne hide the children. They plead with Keenan to spare the children but are both killed by Harry. The shoot-out is interrupted by a mysterious trumpet blast. The church congregation members lower their weapons and run outside rejoicing, claiming that the Rapture has occurred and taunting the ATF.
At a government briefing several days later, Keenan reports that he head-butted Cooper and took the rest of the congregation into custody. He explains that the trumpet noises were a prank by a group of local college students irritated with Cooper. Keenan is promoted despite disobeying a direct order from his superiors. They explain that their initial decision to kill the members of the congregation was personal and that they are satisfied with incarcerating the congregation without trials, upsetting Keenan. Cooper is seen pacing around his cell singing and sermonizing until another prisoner tells him to shut up.
Original ending During various interactive Q&As for the film, Smith has stated that the original ending continued with the Rapture happening and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse descending on the scene. An animated version of the ending was uploaded on the Entertainment Weekly YouTube Channel.
Cast
Production Smith announced at the Wizard World Chicago 2006 convention that his next project would be a straight horror film. In April 2007, Smith revealed the title of the movie to be Red State and said that it was inspired by infamous pastor Fred Phelps and the Waco siege, or as Smith claimed, "very much about that subject matter, that point of view and that position taken to the absolute extreme. It is certainly not Phelps himself but it's very much inspired by a Phelps (like) figure." The first draft was finished in August 2007 with Smith wanting to film it before Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Setting it apart from the majority of his other films, Smith made it clear that Red State was a horror film, stating that there would be no toilet humor in the film.
While speaking at a Q&A event in London on October 13, 2009, Smith stated that funding had been secured for Red State but that he wanted to proceed with his planned hockey film Hit Somebody and delay filming Red State for a year. Another reason cited for the delay was that Smith held a superstition about dying after making his tenth movie, and that he did not want to leave an "unpleasant, nasty" film as his last. In February 2010, he talked about his project with CINSSU, saying that he was working through the project's financial challenges; he considered obtaining funding through investments from his fans but this idea was later dropped.
Film producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who had been involved in the distribution of all Kevin Smith films with the exception of Mallrats and Cop Out, passed on supporting Red State with necessary funding. The budget was provided from two main private investor groups that raised the $4 million, one based in New York, one in Canada.
On July 24, 2010, it was also reported that actor Michael Parks had signed on to the film in a starring role, and on September 5, 2010, Smith confirmed that Matt L. Jones was also cast. On the September 20 edition of his and Ralph Garman's podcast Hollywood Babble-on, Smith announced that John Goodman had joined the cast. Smith edited the film throughout production and showed a first cut at the film's wrap party.
In July 2010, Smith stated on his Twitter account that "God-willing, Sundance in Jan for RED STATE." On November 8, Smith announced on Twitter that the movie was viewed by Sundance, to determine if it was eligible for entry in the 2011 festival. On December 1, Smith announced on his Plus One podcast that Red State would be screened at the 27th Sundance Film Festival in the non-competition section.
In the "Commercial" episode of Comic Book Men, Smith cited Bryan Johnson's film Vulgar as being an inspiration for Red State.
During the post-production process, Smith announced on social media that he was accepting song submissions for the soundtrack of the film. At least one fan-submitted song was used.
Marketing and distribution Throughout the months of November and December, teaser posters were released featuring characters from the movie in auctions via his Twitter account with the winning bidder hosting the poster exclusively on their website, while the money raised by the auction went to charity. Smith released a teaser trailer for the film on December 23, 2010.
Auction controversy
Although Smith had announced plans to auction off the rights to Red State to distributors attending his Sundance Film Festival screening of the film, he revealed that was merely a ploy and Smith planned to self-distribute as a travelling roadshow beginning March 5 at Radio City Music Hall, and would tour the film across North America before releasing Red State directly to DVD and VOD.
Controversy soon erupted after Smith's speech at the film's debut screening at Sundance. Although Smith had decided to self-distribute the film, according to the film's producer Jonathan Gordon the option of self-distributing the movie was not considered at first:Hiring longtime specialty exec Dinerstein (whose film marketing consultancy also arranges self-distribution deals), bringing aboard Cinetic Media (which arranged service deals for sale titles like last year's Banksy doc "Exit Through the Gift Shop") with co-seller WME, and slapping the word "March" at the end of the teaser trailer has led many to suspect Smith has a self-distribution backup plan should an attractive offer fail to materialize. But is self-distribution or a service deal even an option they're considering? "No," says Gordon. "We want to have someone who loves the movie, understands it, knows how to handle it and get the most out of it."
The sudden announcement of self-distribution after initially announcing an auction provoked a backlash from the media and accusations of dishonesty, with some analysts commenting that they watched Smith "implode" and that he had "lost cred" and one prominent buyer saying, "He stole two hours and insulted every one of us ... He was a little like the twisted preacher Michael Parks played in his film. It became life imitating art." Smith joked about the people who had expected to buy the film at his Sundance speech:
Now, we're obviously not selling the movie, so I'm sorry to ... the distributors in the room. ... Number one: I'm not that sorry. It's a fucking film festival. Come see a movie. ... no hard feelings. Hopefully you don't mind. ... Thank you for coming. ... I will say this in my own defense ... a lot of youse work for studios ... you guys make a lot of trailers - you've lied to me many times. ... I've seen many trailers where I'm like "this is awesome", and I put my money down, and I'm like "You fucking lying whores". So ladies and gentleman, as you can see we're up here alienating all our future work, just burning the bridge as we cross it, and ah, that means there's probably not going to be much studio help for me and Jon in the future.
According to some writers, the internet community seemed to galvanize in response to the controversy, "...it seems Kevin Smith finally has the Internet critical community united on the same side: against him." Smith countered allegations of dishonesty by saying, "And I told the truth, in my tweet. I said, 'If I get to Sundance, I intend to pick my distributor in the room, auction-style.' Auction-style—did I not do that? ... I stood up there and said that I'm gonna take my movie—I'm gonna take it out and try not to spend money doing it."
Kim Masters, editor-at-large for The Hollywood Reporter, interviewed associates close to Smith about his alleged career "implosion" at the Sundance debut of his film and the events leading up to it: Smith was one of the first in the business to have a website and sell merchandise – pieces of film from his movies and action figures – to fans. But one source who has worked with him thinks Smith might be one of the first filmmakers to exploit and then be undone by social media, and that access to social media has eliminated any filter that might have protected Smith from emotional outbursts that, in this person's view, have undermined his career.
Smith responded to Masters, saying that it was "a Jerry Maguire moment. I've got a little fish in a plastic bag and one idealistic secretary on my side, and the Bob Sugars seem to be leaning in doorways, smirking."
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