It’s been approximately 12 hours since I finished The Red Mask and I’ve had time to fully soak into the film as a whole. My opinion… it's one of the most innovative and technically sound slashers since the original Scream. 

 

From just a writing standpoint, The Red Mask is phenomenal with so many moments of fantastic meta commentary on horror movies of today and what the expectations that are put on them are. The script by Samantha Gurash and Patrick Robert Young is one of the most clever concepts ever put to the genre and it’s surprise factor truly took me off guard for a genre I felt I had tackled all avenues of. 

 

Ritesh Gupta’s debut behind the camera for his first feature is nothing short of a triumph, utilizing a minor budget even in terms of a standard slasher and transforming it with the help of many behind the scenes into a gorgeous atmosphere you can’t help but be sucked into. A fun fact that the director told during a Q&A at the Nightmares Film Festival is that this was shot at the same cabin that Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was filmed and if that’s not an extra level of meta, I don't know what is. 

 

The film uses a majority of practical effects to create the world of The Red Mask, a horror franchise in universe that is being rebooted and being confronted for being a part of the “woke” agenda. The poster designs of the previous entries inside the film are terrific and actually make me understand the instant nostalgia hit of any of the horror classics and having that hardcore passion to see them be done with justice in future installments. Not to mention the already legendary mask that engrains into your retina upon first sight with its simplistic yet haunting nature feeling all the more real to this horror icons we idolize.  

 

The mystery behind every corner this film takes leaves a lot of tension, with ideas of where the story could go only for it to swivel away from said idea. The film has five actors essentially, if flashes of cameos at the beginning and all five work extraordinarily well together. The core four (stole that from Scream, don’t sue me) are truly excellent working off one another with not one standing above the rest in terms of their performance. Not to mention between them we get some truly memorable gore that horror aficionados will absolutely crave more of. 

 

The Red Mask is a smartly written, sharply directed slasher that without a doubt should make a name for all involved, but most notably director Ritesh Gupta going forward within the genre because if this is where you’re starting there’s no limits to where you can go. Slasher fans should unite and enjoy the commentary the film is making with pure intentions and gravitas, everything the 2019 Black Christmas remake failed at.