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‘Red Letter Day’ Review: Dir. Cameron MacGowan [Frightfest 2019]

Red Letter Day review: Suburbia gets crazy as neighbours fight to the death in this Canadian thriller.

Red Letter Day

The saying goes that everybody needs good neighbours, but what if you and your neighbour are tasked with killing one another? That’s exactly the premise that is explored in Cameron Macgowan’s Red Letter Day. The Edwards family – Melanie, Madison and Timothy – are enjoying a normal day at home, that is until they check the post. The mail contains a red letter for all them, each one containing the name of someone in their neighbourhood with the simple instruction – kill that person before they kill them. They aren’t the only ones to get a letter, and chaos reigns over their once serene suburbia.

The premise sounds like a daytime version of The Purge, and that’s pretty much exactly what Red Letter Day is. This isn’t a national holiday, just someone’s sick idea that gets out of control. In a way, the film could easily be viewed as a prequel to the Blumhouse franchise, I mean, all ideas have to start small somewhere. As with The Purge, Red Letter Day encourages discussion and debate over how and what you would do in the same situation.

Where Red Letter Day differs is in its execution of tone. The Purge films are always played deadly serious, whereas Macgowan has fun with the idea and throws a lot of humour into proceedings. There’s a brilliant, almost comedy of errors, moment involving the humble kitchen knife. The humour works for the most part, and takes some of the sting out of the violence, serving to make the red stuff a little more palatable.

Red Letter Day

At barely seventy-five minutes long, Red Letter Day is over before it has even really begun. It’s hard when working on a limited budget to be able to stretch to the more typical ninety minutes run time, which is a real shame here as another ten minutes would give the film time to breathe a little more. The condensed run time means that the characters don’t have enough time to be proactive, they just spend the whole time reacting to everything that’s happening. They also have to get on board pretty quickly with what is happening as there’s barely time to introduce them before the bloodshed begins. The biggest crime though is that we end up leaving these characters just as we’re finally getting to know them.

A fun-filled take on the kill thy neighbour idea that, whilst enjoyable enough, could benefit from a slightly less punchy pace.

Red Letter Day was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest 2019. 

Kat Hughes is a UK born film critic and interviewer who has a passion for horror films. An editor for THN, Kat is also a Rotten Tomatoes Approved Critic. She has bylines with Ghouls Magazine, Arrow Video, Film Stories, Certified Forgotten and FILMHOUNDS and has had essays published in home entertainment releases by Vinegar Syndrome and Second Sight. When not writing about horror, Kat hosts micro podcast Movies with Mummy along with her five-year-old daughter.

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