Horror Movie Review: Redd Inc. (2012)

Redd Inc. (also known as Inhuman Resources) tells the story of Thomas Reddmann (Nicholas Hope), a serial killer who is found in the lift of the office he works in having decapitated a woman. It’s a great opening image as the lift doors open to show the grinning figure splattered in blood with a decapitated body at his feet.

Annabelle Hale (Kelly Paterniti) comes face to face with him in the lift having come for a job interview. It’s her testimony that helps convict the killer referred too as ‘the head hunter’.

Sometime later, Annabelle is making ends meet by taking her clothes off for an online stripping service. Users log on, she strips & the person on the other end of the connection coughs up money for more skin.

One user begins to ask her odd questions & seems to be offering her a job but she closes the connection on him. A short while later she is attacked & kidnapped by a masked figure.

She wakes up chained to a desk in some sort of basement office alongside five others. Five others that all had a hand in convicting Thomas Reddmann. The serial killer was convicted & sent to a psychiatric hospital with a doctor known for his ‘unusual’ methods. A fire started & Reddmann was presumed dead, identified by his charred hand.

Unfortunately for the group, he isn’t dead having cut his hand off & staged his escape. He is now the captor of the six people who helped convict him & he has a job for them.

In an unexpected turn of events, Reddmann wants the group to go through all the evidence against him & prove that he is not the head hunter killer. A seemingly pointless task considering how he was found in the lift. The group are forced to work for Reddmann as the punishment for inferior results sees some serious violence met out.

Days pass & the folly of the task really begins to sink in especially as the violent nature of Reddmann betrays any innocence he claims. That is until Annabelle finds a name, a witness name that was never called to appear, a witness that gave Reddmann an alibi for one of the head hunter murders.

If Reddmann isn’t the head hunter, just what happened in the lift? Who of the 6 knows the truth & will any of them get out alive?

Redd Inc’s initial story seems nothing more than a torture/revenge horror that drops a mid-point slammer of a development. The realisation that Thomas Reddmann may have actually been innocent, a man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, is stunning. It turns the excitement up a serious notch as your brain starts trying to work out just how it could be possible.

Admittedly while the final reveal isn’t quite as good as it could have been, it at least makes sense. However, it descends into a bog-standard cat & mouse slasher for its finale & begins to really drag. The explanation of why Reddmann is such a heartless man now doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense but Nicholas Hope plays it so well, it doesn’t really matter.

He is the star of the show, being both ruthless & kind at times. He runs a tight ship, good work is rewarded & he is not unfeeling to his staff’s needs (the glasses scene proves this). The rest of the cast are mostly fine too. There are some tense moments such as the passionate exchange between the psychic, Sheena O’Leary (Hayley McElhinney) & Reddmann & the reveal of buried evidence.

Reddmann is a sympathetic character but his punishments make it difficult to side completely with him.

Visually the film’s gritty location fits perfectly with the subject matter, the office space feels confined & it comes across as Reddmann’s last stand.

Redd Inc. is a nice surprise. Telling an interesting & different story about a serial killer. It’s just a pity that it falls apart in the final 30-odd minutes.