I’m willing to give a movie a chance.  I suffered through Shudder and Blindness.  I watched the first Twilight movie, for crying out loud.  I even watched the Bette Midler/James Caan weepy weep For the Boys (and thought it good).  I do my best to go into a movie with little to no expectations, I try to have an open mind.  So, when I popped Red Hook into my old and somewhat trusty DVD player, I didn’t know what I was to witness.  I wasn’t expecting Citizen Kane or The Exorcist, or even Death Row Diner.  Red Hook ain’t a great movie, but thank God it ain’t no Death Row Diner, either.  The world just does not need another Death Row Diner.  I’m serious, I’d rather club baby seals to death than see the likes of that movie again.

Red Hook starts some years ago when Jenny Traylor is a little girl and witnesses her sister stabbed to death by a psycho in a policeman’s uniform.  Jump ahead to her freshman year at college and though she is till haunted and mentally scarred by her sister’s murder she is doing her best to live a full and happy, and normal, life.  You go, girl!  But, OMG, people will not let her forget her tragic past.  Apparently her sister’s murder is the stuff of legend and most everybody wants to hear the gory details all these years later.  Even the detective that shot the crazed stab happy psycho is hanging around the college dorm–WTF?


To better assimilate to college life, Jenny joins the Welcome Week Scavenger Hunt with some new friends and this new guy she met who is far out in a groovy kind of way.  But, as is the way of the college lifestyle (and really, it’s a choice, you’re not born that way), the people on the scavenger hunt are viciously murdered one by one.  I know, totally bummer.

For a movie that appears to have had a budget of $150, Red Hook isn’t that bad.  It’s not that good, but you get what you get.  It’s standard slasher, has some funny moments (some are even intentional), and I liked it better than a root canal or a clown petting zoo.  Watch it with some friends, make some jokes about it here and there, and it should be a diverting 86 minutes.

2.5 out of 5
the_novacula