Starring Danielle Harris, Redwood Massacre: Annihilation is the second film in the Redwood Massacre series. This time around the family of one of the victims decide to go on one last hunt for the site of their beloved’s death, in hopes of finding their remains. Led there by a stranger, Max (Damien Puckler), who is obsessed with the rumoured Burlap Masked Killer, the group of hunters soon become the hunted and a bloody fight for survival begins.
Despite its franchise status, there’s a massive disconnect between this film and the first. On paper it seems to be a direct sequel; it opens with the final girl of the first film, Pamela (Lisa Cameron), being integrated by the fanatical Max, and also features the family of one of the people from Pamela’s group of friends…except the name they use is Sarah, and there’s no one called Sarah in the first film. That is only the beginning of the confusion. Anyone that has seen the first film will remember that everyone is very Scottish, and yet here we have a cast of Americans. Families of course come in all shapes and sizes, but when coupled with the incorrect character name, it feels like Keith just decided he wanted to use the character again and hoped that no one would remember what had come before. Which begs the question, why include the original final girl when you could simply have these people be related to some other random group that went missing?
Then there’s the small matter that the first film sees Pamela and her friends embarking on a camping trip to go and check out a house that was the site of a massacre twenty years before. It’s a place that has generated a lot of notoriety over the years and they aren’t the only people on a pilgrimage there. Yet in Annihilation, no one has been able to find the house that Pamela has spoken about, despite several extensive searches of the area. Keith does attempt to explain this plot hole during the film, but the explanation offered fails to make much sense.
David Robert Keith is another member in what appears to be a new trend in filmmakers who undertake practically every task themselves. Just like Anthony Scott Burns with Come True, and Orson Oblowitz with The Five Rules of Success, Keith writes, directs, edits, produces and shoots, Redwood Massacre: Annihilation. It’s a lot of work to rest on one person’s shoulders, but it does allow the filmmaker total control over their projects. As a one-man band as it were, Keith does a commendable job, especially given the modest budget. One aspect that he really nails is his handling of the lighting. It might seem like an odd thing to comment on, yet all too often, low-budget horror, and high budget ones come to think of it, make it almost impossible to see what is happening by making the ‘dark too dark’. Here, despite the low lighting, the images are crystal clear, which means that gore hounds can bask in all the violence without fear of missing out. Other aspects are a little wobblier, but it’s a valiant effort at trying to birth a new horror icon.
Clear connections, or lack thereof to the first film aside, Redwood Massacre: Annihilation is a fairly standard slasher film. It’s the type of film that we’ve seen time and time again – people being stalked and dismembered by an all-powerful unstoppable killing machine – but Redwood Massacre: Annihilation does what it does well enough. This is a valiant effort to create a new horror icon that unfortunately confuses its own mythology and linkage to its source. Having a fresh story with completely separate standalone characters would have likely served the film better.
Redwood Massacre: Annihilation was reviewed at Arrow Video FrightFest
Redwood Massacre: Annihilation
Summary
Passably entertaining as a slice of generic slasher action, but whether it will get the third film it so desperately wants, and sets up, remains to be seen.
