Red Sands (2009) Reviews

• decent film

  williambriscoe772009-02-23

  I thought that it was a decent movie. i wish there were more army/horror films it makes a good genre. overall acting is decent and storyline was a little slow but not bad by any means. i have read bad reviews all over the net for this film ,but i enjoyed this movie . it has great visuals and atmosphere that keep your interest throughout. so as you can tell i think everyone should watch this and see . i joined IMDb just so i could comment on this because i was going to watch this then all the sites i belong to had negative comments on it so i never watched , but then i got bored and finally watched it and i was impressed.

• Claustrophobic and Tense

  claudio_carvalho2009-04-23

  In the Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, the Staff Sergeant Marcus Howston (Leonard Roberts) is assigned to stay temporary based in the desert nearby Kabul with six other soldiers guarding a road that they can not see from Al Qaeda. While patrolling the desert, they find a millenary temple with a stone carved idol; their translator Gregory Wilcox (Callum Blue) explains that worshippers come to that place to idolize Djinn, a race that have hatred for humans and was made by Allah from the smokeless flame in the beginning of the times in accordance with the Islam and pre-Islamic Arabian folklore. One racist soldier shots the statue that falls apart, unleashing a supernatural force. They camp in an abandoned house and during a sand storm, a Muslim woman (Mercedes Masöhn) comes out of the blue. Sooner they find that their truck was sabotaged and their communication broke down. The group stranded in the middle of nowhere gets mad and they are consumed by their sins and guilty. "Red Sands" is a claustrophobic and tense psychological horror movie, with a great surrealistic story that can be interpreted as a madness process of a group of soldiers stranded in a place that they do not understand the culture and the language. There are many racist and stupid dialogs and situations, like when the sexist soldier shots an archaeological site, but what else could the viewer expect from invaders under stress? The distributor Sony of Brazil shows a total lake of respect with the Brazilian consumers, releasing a shameful DVD without subtitles in Portuguese. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "Força Maligna" ("Malign Force")

• Surprisingly good

  Birgezgin2009-01-31

  Afganisthan war has introduced a new figure to cinema : Djinn. In the past ,"Wish Master" was also a djinn story but mostly a teenage movie. Solders alone in an unknown country, meeting a very different culture, traditions will give many material for movies. This picture is well made, moderate gore, but dark or yellowish scenes create a wonderful atmosphere. Acting is acceptable. Scenario is good when compared with The Objective (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0962711/). End is not confusing. Dialogues are very clean. Thrilling atmosphere is always at a certain level. Effects are very good.To tell the truth I didn't expected such a movie when I touched play button of my player. Highly recommended . 7 points.

• Moves at a steady pace and builds an unnerving atmosphere.

  jhpstrydom2009-05-12

  RED SANDS follows a group of soldiers stationed in the Iraqi desert, during their stay strange things begin to happen when a mysterious woman stumbles into their camp. The film has a very slow pace, something one of my friends found extremely frustrating about this film, during the first act it seemed that the storyline was almost non existent up until the strange woman stumbles into the soldiers hideout, then after that the film started to build this very unsettling tension that has you thinking there's something out there but you just don't know what it is, and it also sets an unnerving mood with the soldiers slowly but surely beginning to lose it, the acting is good considering the minimal character development, the cast clearly didn't have much to work with but they pulled of a decent job. Overall, a good movie if you're the patient kind, but I can say that a lot of people will find the slow pace rather frustrating, because most of the time it will feel like there's no storyline, but its there, like I said if you're the patient kind.

• Army psycho-thriller set in Afghanistan desert

  Frizzp2009-03-06

  'Red Sands' is the story of seven soldiers, stranded in the desert, guarding a road that doesn't exist. They accidentally unleash an age-old force; a jinn (genie). Strange events begin to consume the camp, and as chaos and eventual destruction ensue, madness becomes their only option. A good thriller film with cutthroat tension, this film grabs you and draws you in. The calculated way the soldiers descend to primeval actions is mixed brilliantly with the surreal atmosphere of the desert. Although the effects get slightly unbelievable towards the end, the psychological tension in some of the sequences makes up for anything. The human characters are developed during the film, and human nature explored in gritty realism. !Spoiler! - I would have liked to have seen the girl explained in more depth; master of a few suitably chilling glances, her role was never really explained even at the end, and I was desperate for her to create a huge genie supernova at any second... Also, who exactly the jinn inhabited at any one moment was a question best left unanswered! Despite its failings the film affected me, and is definitely worth a watch. For me, 'Red Sands' answered that fundamental question of 'what would the US army do if faced with a jinn in the middle of the desert with no communications?' 'Go Crazy, Sir'...