The Dark Red
**Seen at the 2020 Women in Horror Film Festival**
One of the smartest things about Dan Bush’s “The Dark Red” is how, even when it commits to the direction you think it’s going to go, there’s still a lingering possibility that the film will pull the rug out from under us, and take us down the other path when all is said and done. Even when it doesn’t, it’s still a wholly gripping experience.
The film begins with a case worker for the county (Jill Jane Clements) driving out to a trailer to check on the well being of a child. She finds a mother dead, and a child hidden in a compartment. We then see the child being taught by a therapist. Cut to about two decades later, and Sybil (April Billingsley) is in a mental institution, for the first of three sessions with Dr. Deluce (Kelsey Scott). She’s been put in the institution because of her story of loss, love, pregnancy and supernatural powers that a cult is interested in.
“The Dark Red” is very much experiential when it comes how it we are brought into Sybil’s world. The doctor is rightly skeptical of her claims, and we cannot help but be skeptical, as well, but Sybil is very certain of how her life has gotten to this point, and we cannot help but believe her. The script by Bush and Conal Byrne sets her up to be an unreliable narrator, and yet, Billingsley’s performance makes us feel like there is genuine truth to what she says. The story we hear from her is a mix of X-Men and “Rosemary’s Baby,” including grieving the loss of a mother, a night of passion that leads to a relationship, a pregnancy, and a trip to meet the parents that turns into a nightmare.
Bush’s fractured timeline moves between the distant past and recent past through psychiatric sessions and then afterwards. As the film begins moving in a more linear fashion, the story starts to feel more conventional, and loses some steam, though it continues to hold our interest thanks to the lead performance and Bush’s storytelling instincts. Even as the film reaches its conclusion, we wonder how much of what we’ve seen is real, or if it’s just the fevered imagination of a troubled woman. Regardless of how it turns out, “The Dark Red” has a story of trauma, psychological danger and thrills that keeps us on edge every step of the way.
