So yes. Here we are at number 18 on our "Chilling Classics" Movie pack. And oh well, we might as well get right into it.
Allrighty. This movie begins with, that's right, you guessed it, somebody getting stabbed. Why they're getting stabbed? Who's stabbing them? i have no idea! well, maybe i will after the movie's over. OK. Here's the first problem with a slasher thriller. it's 2 hours long. The alternate title to this movie is "The Hatchet Murders" no movie with that alternate title should be over 90 minutes. if you make a slasher thriller and it's 126 minutes, you're just pure unadulterated evil.
So the movie is about this psychic who we know for all of 5 minutes as she's quickly murdered by somebody because she knows that person committed murder. Apparently that person thinks about it so loudly that it drowns out 200 other people in the audience. My opinion is that the killer was probably singing the meow mix song in their head while replacing the lyrics "i'm a killer, i'm a killer, stab my husband in the baaackk". And then the girl gets owned by a cleaver. several times. However our hero (a pianist) sees the murder take place and takes it upon himself to solve it. And the police kind of just step aside as he does so. Watch out men! he's a licensed Pianist! And to drive this fact home, they show a scene where he plays the piano, just in case you didn't believe him.
Then we're introduced to quite possibly the stupidest journalist in...well... okay, they are stupid in EVERY movie but you get the point. Not only does she barge into the crime scene to take photos, but she takes a snapshot of the only eyewitness putting his name and info on the front page of the paper. i'm sorry, that's...that's just stupid. So mr pianist and his new journalist spunky female friend (my brain hurts) try to figure out the murders. Why? i have absolutely no clue. Apparently it has a connection to a song or something, but then it doesn't? So after a grueling hour and a half of searching we discover that it's the pianist's friend. and granted his death is pretty badass. Getting dragged by a truck and head crushed is pretty nifty. and all is well....OR IS IT?! no! because the real killer is his mom! The reasoning behind that is that several decades ago she killed her husband because....he...wanted to take her to the doctor to get mental help. So she stabs him. Sorry but.... if you stab your husband...doesn't that kind of PROVE you're crazy? and that's all the backstory we get for the reason she killed like 10 people. and the son was just covering it up for her. And then she gets her head cut off because she was wearing gaudy jewelry. The End.
The biggest problem of this movie besides the ungodly length was the fact that i really didn't care about these characters or why they were doing what they were doing. i sort of just shrugged and felt like going about my business. They didn't draw me in, i didn't feel anything they were doing and i felt like the pianists involvement was random and i didn't believe it. i know i always say that a movie should be based on entertainment value and i stick by that. But if a movie drags on and on, you get bored and you begin to think about these things. Now granted there's some cool gore and it's not the worst thing i've ever seen, it's pretty passable, but other than a meh, i wasn't that interested. I was more than a little shocked when i saw the high ratings on this movie. I could see this movie maybe getting a 4-6, but nothing above that. that's just ridiculous.
Deep Red gets 4 Necklaces of death, out of 10