Rated: Unrated | Running Time: 92 Minutes
From: Dark Sky Films
Available on Blu-ray, Digital HD, and in select theaters: July 28, 2017
Get it via : Amazon
Poor Molly. She can’t catch a break. There she is, trying to escape the zombie apocalypse with her boyfriend, Nick (Merwin Mondesir), and she needs to vomit. In the middle of the desert you would think they would be safe from the zombies, but wouldn’t you know it, now with their fancy car stuck in the sand, here he comes, a zombie, over the horizon, and we quickly learn how stupid Molly and Nick really are. Welcome to “It Stains the Sands Red.”
Okay, first some backstory on Molly.
Molly (Brittany Allen) is a Las Vegas stripper, addicted to cocaine amongst other things, with a son she can’t take care of. She’s got tons of personal demons, from her time as a youngster to her time as an oldster, and she is a mess. Now it’s the zombie apocalypse. Originally lucky for her, Nick knows someone who can get his hands on a plane at an airstrip far away from the walking dead, and they are on their road trip.
Enough backstory, here comes the unluckiness.
As I mentioned, Molly and Nick aren’t the brightest bulbs in the bunch, and our zombie friend comes strolling up the road. Sure, Nick has a gun, but at the slowest, moving target ever, Nick is the epitome of not being able to shoot the broad side of a barn.
Yup, Nick eventually is toast.
Now it’s just Molly and the zombie, alone in the desert, with Molly’s hope for survival being able to walk about forty miles to the airstrip, meet Nick’s friend, and fly to safety. With a bunch of bottles of water, some vodka, cigarettes, a tampon, and a decent supply of coke, Molly is on her way.
What doesn’t Molly realize? Zombies don’t stop to rest.
And so, for most of the rest of the movie, we have Smalls (Juan Riedinger), that’s Molly’s nickname for the zombie, chasing Molly, and Molly in situation after situation that she could probably kill him for good. Alas, Molly can’t seem to figure this out, and just keeps yelling at Smalls to quit chasing her.
Molly is stuck in the real world of the desert, complete with the heat, the cold, scorpions, a sandstorm, bad guys finding her, being snuck up on by a Smalls, a zombie mind you, causing her to lose her coke, and flashbacks of her crappy life.
Then, in one of the weirdest moments of movie Stockholm Syndrome, Molly begins to feel for her captor, Smalls, and doesn’t want anything bad to happen him.
Ah, potential zombie mothering by Molly, not wanting to “lose” another son!
Okay, enough of the story. Is “It Stains the Sands Red” any good?
There was a part, early on, where I said to myself, “Self, aren’t there going to be any more zombies in this movie? Where the hell is everyone else? You can’t tell me this is going to be entertaining with just the two of these dopes?”
And then I got sucked in.
Yes, you have to get past the fact that Molly and Nick are stupid and can’t kill Smalls to start with, and then that Molly is stupid and doesn’t figure out any way to kill Smalls, but with that knowledge it’s easy to see how Molly can traipse through the desert, wrestling with the demons in her head, while asking a zombie to stop follow her. The thing also was that even though I knew every suspense spot would bring a “shock,” a Smalls showing up, or other surprise, somehow the movie folks sent some shivers down my spine.
The best zombie movie? Nah, but “It Stains the Sands Red” takes a zombie themed movie and turns it into a redemption movie for Molly. This was a pleasantly unexpected twist, and at the end of it all I’ll give “It Stains the Sands Red” 4 stars out of 5.
The movie did what I believe it intended to, have enough zombie horror to please people who like seeing a zombie gnaw on some entrails, maybe scare a few people with suspense moments, and then thrown in a story of a woman trying to come to terms with her own demons, and lucky for her, kind of, this woman is trapped in a desert with a zombie to figure it all out.
I actually enjoyed this movie when it was just Molly and Smalls hanging in the desert. Once the other characters showed up things took turns I would have left out. Then there is the ending that I’ll try to not completely ruin, but I’ll just say that one of the reasons no will probably let me write a screenplay is that I would have ended it with her meeting the ending character, that person would have been a zombie, and so much for her redemption.
Guess I’ll just keep reviewing and not ruining people’s days at the movies!
That’s it for this one! L8R!!