REDD INC. (INHUMAN RESOURCES) (2012)

Studio:       Fangoria Presents
Director:    Daniel Krige
Writer:       Anthony O’Connor, Jonathon Green
Producer:  Jonathon Green, Sandy Stevens
Stars:     Nicholas Hope, Kelly Paterniti, Sam Reid, James Mackay, Alan Dukes, Hayley McElhinney, Daniel Krige

Review Score:

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Summary:

Accused of multiple murders, a deranged office manager kidnaps the people responsible for his conviction and forces them to work on proving his innocence.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In an office building, Annabelle Hale waits to board an elevator. When the door opens, she sees Thomas Reddman, a.k.a. Redd, standing over a decapitated woman with a bloody axe in his hand. News clips then tell the story of Reddman’s criminal trial and conviction for being the “Headhunter” serial killer. Subsequently, a fire consumes the Lansdale Clinic where he is being treated and he is believed dead when his severed left arm is discovered.

Six months later, Annabelle works as a Bullet Girlz cam girl. A mysterious client appears via webcam and speaks cryptically about having a job for her shortly before she is abducted.

Annabelle awakens in a conference room chained to a workstation with five other people. All of them are related to Redd’s conviction. Wheelchair-bound Edward Crandell was the arresting officer. Rudy Khan led the defense team. Sheena O’Leary assisted the police as a psychic. Along with Annabelle, William Tucker was an eyewitness to the aftermath of the elevator murder. Guy Marr led the prosecution. Guy has been imprisoned longer than the others as he behaves like a broken man and has four lines carved into his forehead.

Screaming can be heard from another room. Redd enters pushing a cart. He hands everyone a cup of water and a binder as he lays out the office rules. Everyone will have two social breaks, three toilet breaks, and must finish all meals as well as all tasks provided. Their first assignment is to transcribe everything in the binders into the computers in front of each person. Sheena says she cannot work without her glasses. William has a splintered fingernail. He and Annabelle flirt a little bit with each other.

Redd enters with a food plate for everyone. Guy eats before being given an instruction. Redd confiscates his meal and Guy stabs him with a pencil. Redd feels no pain. He uses Guy as an example by marking a slice on his head for a fifth transgression. He then removes his artificial left hand to reveal a curved blade that he uses to decapitate Guy. The fifth transgression means death. He puts the head in a filing cabinet and also gives Sheena a pair of glasses from the same cabinet.

Annabelle is taken to the bathroom where she discovers that a grate above a stall can be unscrewed. She notices scars on the back of Redd’s head while he straps her into the chair he uses for transport. He carves a mark on her head for taking too long in the bathroom. She dreams that Redd attacks her with an axe. When she wakes, Redd takes her to his office. She sees pictures on his wall of everyone currently held in the conference room. He interviews Annabelle and she admits that she did not see Redd deliver the killing blow to the woman in the elevator, but only him holding the axe. He tells her that he is not the Headhunter and it is her task to find the real killer. He gives her a box of tapes and discs and returns her to her workstation. She begins reviewing recorded witness statements and makes a note that people heard wheezing sounds at the time of the murders.

Everyone is given additional tasks to prove Redd’s innocence. Screaming can still be heard from another room. Rudy tells the group that the Lansdale Clinic where Redd was treated was notorious for altering a patient’s state of mind. Sheena tries reasoning with Redd and receives a slice on her head. Redd stresses to the group that he is a regional manager, not a murderer. Later, he removes the splinter from William’s finger and forces him to take off his own fingernail. Anabelle notes more wheezing on the recordings she is reviewing. Screaming is still heard from another room. Annabelle tells Edward about the grate in the bathroom.

The group realizes that Redd is drugging them through their food to put them to sleep. During the night, Redd finally cleans up Guy’s dead body. Annabelle continues to work on unscrewing the grate during her bathroom breaks. William spills a cup of water and is given a forehead slice. Redd issues more forehead marks to the group via a montage.

Sheena and Redd have another confrontation. She finally admits she is not a psychic. Redd removes her eyeballs with his hands and then suffocates her with a bag. William is forced to clean up the mess. Redd says it is time for a performance review.

In his office, Annabelle admits that she was hungover at the time she saw Redd grinning in the elevator while holding the axe. William says that Redd actually looked terrified in the elevator. Edward knew that the Headhunter would strike at that office building and caught Redd as he was holding the axe. Redd reveals to Rudy that the height of the elevator would have prevented decapitation by axe.

Back in the conference room, Annabelle notices an inconsistency in the evidence. Edward admits that he suppressed testimony from a witness who gave Redd an alibi for one of the murders. Redd straps Edward to a table in another room and cuts off his legs with a power saw. Annabelle works on the grate screws. While she sleeps, Redd brushes her hair. She wakes to see Redd shaving William. She asks to go to the bathroom and makes her escape through the vent. Using matches to light her way, she lands in a room where Redd stores the dead bodies. Annabelle also finds the judge from Redd’s trial tied to a chair, but still alive and the source of the occasional screaming. Redd finds her and she uses Edward’s severed leg to hit Redd. His wig comes off and reveals scars all over his head. She knocks him out with another blow from the leg and returns to the conference room to free Rudy and William with Redd’s keys.

The trio dials 911 and then arms themselves with office supplies as weapons. Rudy is stabbed in a fight with Redd after Redd recovers from Annabelle’s attack and chases after them. William and Annabelle escape in an elevator. Annabelle learns that William is the real Headhunter when he starts wheezing. He stabs her and she starts running away. William explains that he killed the woman in the elevator without realizing that Redd was also in there. He handed the axe to Redd while he was in shock and then ran downstairs where he stood with Annabelle.

Annabelle escapes from William and is rescued by police. Redd is seen gathering his things and calmly exiting the building.

Months later, Annabelle has released a book about her experience and is set to do a signing. When her agent arrives, William is right behind and kills him in front of her. She stabs William in the eye with a screwdriver and makes it outside. Redd approaches. He tells Annabelle to get behind her and then he kills William. Redd then tells her he will be in touch and then he leaves to deal with Lansdale. Annabelle arrives at her book signing as a bloody mess. She puts William’s severed head on the podium and chugs beer in front of the audience.

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Review:

When the system fails an unstable man with a devious mind, he takes matters into his own hands.  The people he deems responsible for his situation are captured, bound, tortured, and given a task that will either prove his point, or result in their deaths.  Should they survive their twisted experience, they will have a newfound appreciation of the fact that every action has a consequence that should never be taken lightly.

The above synopsis could describe the premise of “Saw” in vague terms.  Actually, it is a description of the Saw-inspired Australian thriller “Redd Inc.”  At first glance, it felt as though another carbon copy of the “torture porn” genre’s crown jewel had appeared on the screen.  And then the movie moved past the premise of six people chained in a room with the threat of a violent death looming over their heads, and moved into its own territory.  Once there, I found myself genuinely interested in how the scenario would ultimately play out.

Unlike other “Saw” clones, “Redd Inc” has a story.  Convicted of being the notorious “Headhunter,” a serial killer who targeted corporate heads and CEOs, Thomas Reddman (a.k.a. Redd) brings a new meaning to the term “office hell” when the people who put Redd away are forcibly given new jobs to prove his innocence.  Anyone who has ever felt chained to a cubicle will see what that expression literally means.

There is a timely bit of wry commentary that vilifies corporate greed while wagging a cautionary finger at how merely going through the motions on a job can cause more trouble than could ever be expected.  It is a brief subtlety, and perhaps unintentional, but the office setting with put upon workers and a threatening boss is a horror that makes the unlikely premise at least partially relatable.  The setting pulls double duty as a wise choice because the economical production is staged primarily inside one singular conference room.

Nicholas Hope plays the demented Redd.  Reminiscent of a cross between Sam Neill and Hugo Weaving, Hope delivers the right blend of character traits to make Redd an intriguing persona instead of a soulless killer.  He is at once despicable and admirable.  Sinister and studious.  Redd has a perverse logic motivating his deranged actions that almost makes sense, and he elicits some sympathy towards his circumstances when the backstory behind his dementia is revealed.  His passion for running a productive office is almost respectable, until he starts cutting off heads for poor performance.  There are complicated facets to Redd, and Hope conveys all of them at once, even in singular moments.

Kelly Paterniti as Annabelle, who at times you are likely to forget is not Danielle Harris, is equal parts resourceful heroine and Pauline in peril.  In fact, most of Redd’s captives have more than one note to their characters.  In another film, they would have been props for bloody murder.  Here, they have sustained individualities.

To be even a passable “Saw” clone, two things are required.  Story is first.  Without interesting characters or a unique spin, all that remains is a skeleton for showcasing shocking death scenes.  Speaking of death, unique kills are the second requirement.  “Torture porn” is popular in part because of the elaborate ways an audience can see a human head torn apart.  It is the climactic release for the built-up anticipation of watching imminent doom creep closer towards its victim.  “Redd Inc” does not have the checkbook for slaughter to compete on the levels of an Eli Roth film.  So it does the next best thing.

“Redd Inc” enlists the reliable makeup FX talents of genre legend Tom Savini to employ his special brand of movie magic on the blood work.  There may be no better name for providing gore on a budget.  I cannot even remember the last time I saw Savini’s hands dirtied with makeup (IMDB says it has been 10 years since he was last credited in the Makeup Department), so that alone is a draw to the film (as evidenced by his prominent credit on the DVD cover).  Just do not expect his patented brand of over-the-top carnage as the work done here is on an intentionally smaller scale.  There is more than one decapitation in the film.  However, the makeup FX are otherwise effective because of their subtlety.  In one instance, Redd brands victims for perceived transgressions by slicing a mark on their foreheads.  These thin cuts even wound slightly in a realistic fashion as time progresses.  A simple effect, done very well.

Cary Elwes sawing off his own foot is not required when you can provide an even greater armrest-gripper with a pair of pliers and one fingernail.  A fountain of blood is equally unnecessary.  Plucked out eyeballs and a bag over the head are far more effective ways to make an audience squirm in their seats without resorting to an over-the-top gore shower.

Where “Redd Inc” lets its audience down is in the last act.  The tone of the movie makes a change so abrupt that a chiropractor may need to perform neck realignment afterwards.  The film ends in a manner that becomes obvious well before it happens, and then thumps itself down on an absurd thud that is out of place with the rest of the movie.  A serious attitude can only go so far when the subject matter involves a hook-handed escaped mental patient who thinks of himself as an office manager instead of a serial killer.  But “Redd Inc” abandons its demented morality play for rim shots of black comedy that would make more sense in a Troma film.  It created intrigue from an implausible concept and then gave up that it could make it all the way through without making fun of itself.

Still, the journey to that end is entertaining.  Reliable performances keep the film from straying too far into the silliness zone.  That is, until it intentionally goes there on its own.  Although along the way, whenever the twisted fantasy starts becoming a comfortable place, there is usually a Savini gag around the corner to reel “Redd Inc” back into a world of grimace-inducing pain.

NOTE: "Redd Inc." is also known by the title “Inhuman Resources.”

Review Score:  60

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