“Our next couple entries are more from the movie store fire sale, but they weren’t among the ones commented on by the video store guy (more of those will come later). Instead, I turned this past weekend into a triple feature of trilogy I was happy to find in its entirety. That would be the Red Riding trilogy. It’s a series of 3 movies (based on 3 of 4 books in a series) that were done as a British mini series, but also had concurrent limited releases here in the US. I thought they sounded pretty cool. It’s 3 movies set in 3 different years in the same area of England. For the most part, the stories can stand alone from each other, but there are some recurring characters and references back and forth. Nothing major that you’d likely miss if you just saw one.
I think this first installment was the best of the three. The biggest reason being that it was the one that held my attention the best. I was good about not really multitasking while I watched (other than my physical therapy exercises and some sewing, neither of which use any brain power), but I had trouble sticking with a lot of the films in general. I’ll admit that one of the main reasons I was able to stay present for this one best is that the cast was led by Andrew Garfield. It’s not difficult to stay interested in him when he’s on screen. Rebecca Hall was also a welcome addition (even if her blonde hair threw me off).
The main take away I got was how much this felt like True Blood (season 1, as I haven’t seen season 2 yet). Swap out the whole antler thing for swan wings, and the vibes pretty much line up. Seeing as how this was first, I can’t help but think that maybe this was an influence there. It’s a similar dark and dreary drawn out murder mystery. Even the screen colorization matches up.
Andrew Garfield is a journalist who is trying to find out what happened to a little girl who disappeared. He runs across quite the cadre of shady folk along the way as he goes deeper down the rabbit hole. Pretty standard stuff. There were attempts to up the ante with some gruesome visuals, but nothing too revelatory. I think this one’s story was the most straightfoward, which also helped strengthen it. Maybe not worth the hype I’d built up for it going in, but not bad either.”