Overlook Film Festival 2025: ‘Redux Redux’ reinvents revenge

Revenge thrillers are as old as time itself. From genre benchmarks Virgin Spring and I Spit on Your Grave to modern fare like Revenge and Violation, revenge has always been an essential storytelling mechanism. To truly stand out, you must do one of two things: perfect conventions or flip the script. Filmmakers Kevin and Matthew McManus position their collaborative release, Redux Redux, which has been making the festival rounds this year, including at this spring’s Overlook Film Festival, firmly in the latter category. With a universe-hopping trick, the film injects revenge with a necessary dose of grief that feels grounded and earnest yet out of this world.

When Irene’s (Michaela McManus) daughter, Anna, is brutally slain by a serial killer, Irene takes it upon herself to avenge Anna’s death by jumping through the multiverse and murdering him over and over and over again. She possesses a machine that permits her to move between universes in the blink of an eye, a refreshing spin on the typical genre yarn. While laying waste to Neville (a sinister Jeremy Holm), she’s also looking for her daughter in an alternate reality where she doesn’t die. Irene’s grief motivates her, almost forcing her to take up this act of valor as a way to absolve any blame she feels. Michaela, the sister to the writing and directing team, offers up a layered and nuanced take on bloodthirsty revenge. She doesn’t play it straight but instead allows her performance to shed light on the vast array of emotions that come with death. She’s angry, broken, sad, and everything else. She colors each moment with a rich combination. She’s never just one thing. She’s all the things.

In her journey, she runs into troubled young teen Mia (Stella Marcus), who immediately latches onto Irene as a maternal figure. Mia’s presence tosses a welcome wrench into the narrative and complicates Irena’s heroic path. Mia, who’s run away from a group home, becomes an embodiment of Irene’s daughter – a physical reminder of her blood-hungry destiny. Irene feels obligated to care for Mia as they begin galavanting across the multiverse. Mia hangs onto the mission as a reason for living and a purpose to drive her forward. But as the duo continues the expedition to find Anna, Mia discovers a fate in another universe that rattles her, and she quickly adopts Irene’s wrath.

The McManus Brothers keep the story rooted in real, raw human emotions. It just so happens to be present within a heightened reality of multiverse travel. As Irene points out, the differences between universes are so small, you hardly notice them. Within this fictional landscape, the creative team reminds the audience that grief and revenge are the same, no matter the circumstances. The truth is that human beings are predictable creatures, always desiring answers for the tragedies that befall us. Kevin and Matthew guide the viewer through a funhouse of sorrow and rage, each in equal measure, and provoke questions about our own place in the world and how we react to catastrophe. Naturally, we can’t go around killing our transgressors, and Redux Redux allows for a cathartic experience that washes us clean.

Redux Redux doesn’t just reinvent the revenge genre; it flips it on its head, shatters it, and then rearranges the broken shards. As Irene comes to learn that killing Anna’s murderer doesn’t give her the satisfaction that’s intended, so learns the audience that such acts of revenge don’t heal the deeper psychological wounds. It only exacerbates them. With a star turn by Michaela, the film centers itself as the year’s best genre release, and it’s not one you’ll forget any time soon.