Instant Reaction: Kevin Smith's Red State Debuts At Sundance

Kevin Smith’s new movie Red State debuted tonight at the Sundance Film Festival, and our own Katey Rich was there to witness not only the film but the wild hoopla that’s sprung up around it. The movie is a horror film in which a group of misfits encounter extreme, fundamentalists Christians in middle America. The fundamentalists involved are, in a way, based on the now infamous Westboro Baptist Church, a group dedicated to hating just about anything and everything. They were there, of course, waving protest signs before the screening and we’ll have a full report on the film and all the events surrounding it from Katey soon on our Sundance feed.

For now, while Katey fights her way to a decent wi-fi connection, here’s the short, instant reaction she just texted into Cinema Blend headquarters moments ago: “Messy, overwritten, visually stylish, but kind of a bore. More like Kevin Smith than it looks because nobody ever stops talking. And it’s not a horror movie by any usual definition. More like teen horror movie morphs into Waco disaster. Melissa Leo overacts, Michael Parks is impressive as Fred Phelps figure but the character’s meaning and purpose in the narrative (or lack thereof) is fuzzy.”

UPDATE! Katey's full review of Red State is now available right here.

Here’s a few other reactions as they exploded out onto the internet through Twitter.

@kateyrich RED STATE: nah. Action and bloodshed as generic as it comes, typical talky Kevin Smith dialogue kills all tension and energy.

@ErikDavis Red State: Bloody, violent, random, preachy. I dug it, but didn't love it.

@Ethan_Anderton RED STATE is not without flaws but the combination of religious extremism, a Waco-style stand-off and stellar performances make it thrilling

@EricVespe Red State itself is a mixed bag. Not a horror movie, kind of a Waco siege flick.

@JHoffman6 Red State: decent intentions, poor execution, inelegant scripting, overall not particularly good.

@alisonwillmore Nasty fundamentalist caricatures vs nasty law enforcement ones. Literally and figuratively preachy.

@MattDentler "Red State" was good, and also not what I expected at all.

@jamesrocchi It's nice to contemplate how Kevin Smith wants to make films that aren't comedies. Too bad he tried to make all of them at once.

@peterknegt 'Red State' is a well-intentioned mess.

@davechensky Unlike anything @thatkevinsmith has ever done b4. A nonstop barrage of violence & religious terror that will pin you to your seat

@TheInSneider Red state a total reinvention for @thatkevinsmith Ioved it parks was amazing

NOTE: We're just grabbing reactions from established critics on twitter as we see them and posting them above with no particular bias towards the opinion being voiced. If you find tweets from other reviewers which we haven't posted, then please add them in the comments below. Our plan here is just to grab a random sampling of the first few tweets to give you an idea of what's being said.