The Redsin Tower (2006) (USA)

⭐️⭐️

I’ve pretty much avoided anything attached to Fred Vogel after finding his August Underground series far more annoying than disturbing. It’s not his fault, extreme horror usually tries my patience due to the initial shock wearing off within the first 15 minutes. I mean, it may be his fault but people I respect seem to enjoy those three insufferable movies and that’s fine. Different strokes and such. So, I’m not big on Vogel and I’ve never gone out of my way to track down anything else he’s done. That brings us to Redsin Tower and my dangerous knack for beginning to fixate on something that holds just a morsel of interest. Like a vomit and gore covered rat just scratching at the inside of my skull. Those people who were singing praises about the AU series told me that Redsin wasn’t all that great because it lacked the edge. What I was hearing was that Mr. Vogel wasn’t able to distract the audience with sexual deviance and graphic violence so he would have to rely on filmmaking capabilities. For some reason, that did it for me. I wanted to know what the man was capable of. The second issue came when I was looking at the price of this OOP flick and no matter what anyone may say about me or my bank account, if you’re not some weirdo under-seen flick from India or Indonesia, I won’t be spending more than 20 bucks on you. So, to the back burner it went… but that rat never stopped scratching. I’d like to wrap up this little sojourn with an exciting and interesting tale about how I finally got my hands on it but it’s not at all that exciting or interesting. It finally popped up on a torrent site and I downloaded it. I’m sorry, that’s just real life and it’s also the perfect boring story for a film of this caliber. A young woman breaks up with her boyfriend after they bang and she’s pretty down about it. The moody music playing over the opening credits as she takes a bath and looks sad lets us know that it’s an emotionally trying time. Her ex calls her and leaves a distressing voicemail, he may be slipping towards a case of the crazies but he’s also about as threatening as Stephen Geoffreys in Fright Night mixed with a British toddler, it’s more laughable than anything. Kim’s (the recently single sad lady) horrible friend Becky comes over to be really obnoxious and assure her she did the right thing. Becky convinces Kim to go party with her while her sad ex writes angrily on a legal pad and burns a picture of them… uh oh. Again, if it didn’t look like a slight breeze would hurt this derp, it may be intimidating… instead, I’m just snickering at this limp noodle playing tough. The idiot rats on the party they’re planning on going to and borrows his friend’s gun in a plot to get his girl back. Does it work? No. Of course not. This dude blows goats. I’m really rooting for this shit-stain to die. The teens that want to get their party on decide to go hang out at the creepy Redsin Tower because it doesn’t cost a thing and has a creepy-ass history. Unfortunately, sad ex follows them on his bicycle (why would anyone think bike riding could be menacing?) and his mental stability is beginning to fracture. It gets worse when he confronts Kim and her friends at a gas station and gets his ass handed to him. Good for them. After what feels like forever, the group of dummies make it to the Redsin Tower and set up in one of the chambers located in the cavernous tower dungeon. We then get a flashback about the true tortures the alchemist Redsin took part in when the chunky member of the group gets possessed and tells the tale of cannibalism, possession and pure evil. After that brief foray into impressive graphic splat, the beer bong gets busted out and we’re back to the uninteresting stuff. Hit the party montage to music that’s surprisingly not as bad as I was expecting from a Toe Tag production. Chunky boy seems normal, so I guess we’ll just forget about it. Ex grabs a hatchet, people separate, the supernatural presence decides to reveal itself and folks finally begin to die… it just takes a bit. Inane dialogue pollutes the film and fails at being humorous or interesting which is a shame because there’s so damn much of it before anything engrossing happens. The film is a chore to get through but it was also a chore to find so I guess it all makes sense in the end. The violence is solid but the time spent with unlikable and boring people was a bold and stupid choice. There’s about twenty minutes left when the damn thing finally picks up steam. Hey, at least I enjoyed it more than August Underground but I’ve also enjoyed back alley prostate exams more than that series, so it’s pretty faint praise. Dumb fucking ending.