Red Letter Day Film Review

After her divorce single mother Melanie Edwards (Dawn Van de Schoot) moves herself and her two teens, Madison (Hailey Foss) and Timothy (Kaeleb Zain Gartner) to a quant suburban town. One seemingly normal morning turns their lives upside down when the family receives three mysterious red letters in the mail instructing them to kill their neighbors or suffer the consequences.

The thought of an event such as Red Letter Day happening in real life is scary. Social media has an enormous amount of influence on people. If a company or an influencer says jump the general public says “how high?” That’s a lot of responsibility and control over people. This movie takes a look into what would happen if there was a case of mass hysteria in the world today. Technology can be our greatest asset but in wrong hands it can also lead us down the path of destruction.

I believe that Red Letter Day will soon be compared with the Univeral Studios film The Purge. Although I have seen the first film in the Purge series I wasn’t a fan and found that the entire movie seemed very forced and didn’t meet my expectations. Although Red Letter Day is similar in plot and tone I think it is far superior. This film takes the more realistic, psychological thriller route and that to me was a brilliant approach.

Generally speaking I tend to have bigger expectations for horror movies and psychological thrillers than any other genre. The reason for this is that these films have way more wiggle room when it comes to making an impression. If I’m watching a historical drama I want to feel the emotion of the characters. I want to feel as though I’m in that time period if only for a few hours. The same applies to horror except I want to be scared. I don’t need gore in a film to be frightened and this film is a great example of how a realistic situation can be scarier than horror classics such as Dawn of the Dead.

Red Letter day is a superior genre piece that dives deep into the human psyche. If you’re a fan of psychological thrillers I think you’ll love this movie. I give this film a 10/10. I was very impressed by Writer and Director Cameron Macgowan. Macgowan is known for his short films and this is his first full length feature. I have no doubt that with talent like his we will see more of his work in the future. Red Letter Day will be released by Epic Pictures under the label Dread on Blu-Ray and VOD November 5.