ScreamFest 2025: ‘The Red Mask’ is a smash in the making
Ritesh Gupta’s new feature is a delightful meta-slasher that turns everything on its head.
In a post-Scream world, conventional slashers don’t cut it. Today’s most effective slashers subvert conventions and tropes. From The Final Girls to Totally Killer and Sick, slashers need to comment on the modern world (There’s Someone Inside Your House, Initiation, Clown in a Cornfield), flip the perspective (In a Violent Nature), or blend genres into a fruity cocktail (Freaky, Happy Death Day, Time Cut). Now, you can add Ritesh Gupta’s The Red Mask, which played ScreamFest last night, into the conversation. While self-referencing The Strangers, Funny Games, and Scream, the meta-slasher takes cues from the past but carves out its own way forward.
A major film studio hires young screenwriter Allina (Helena Howard) to write a new Red Mask sequel. As a Black woman, she receives ridicule for her race, with many online claiming she’s nothing more than a DEI hire. She even starts getting death threats, so she and her girlfriend Deetz (Inanna Sarkis) escape the city for a retreat to a cabin in the woods. Working tirelessly on her script, Allina struggles with putting the pieces together into something that makes the studio happy, the fans happy, and feels creatively fulfilling. It’s a difficult line to balance, particularly as diehard fans grow increasingly hostile toward her.
To get inspiration pumping, Allina and Deetz play a game where they act out Allina’s script to stoke the fire. While taking a break between playing pretend, two strangers show up on their doorstep, claiming to have booked the same cabin. Claire (Kelli Garner) and Ryan (Jake Abel) coerce Allina and Deetz into opening the door after showing them their Airbnb reservation. They’re innocuous enough, but things go sideways when they reveal themselves to be Red Mask superfans. What transpires next is a deranged cat-and-mouse game, packed with twists and turns, that’s as fun as it is compelling in its conversations about fan meddling in studio decisions and how fandom quickly devolves into the “woke” vat of poison. It’s not a wholly original thematic exploration, but The Red Mask delivers the goods in every possible way. It’s a fine-tuned, well-oiled slasher machine operating on all cylinders.
Scriptwriters Samantha Gurash and Patrick Robert Young deliver a tight and clever script. Paired with Gupta’s smart directing style, The Red Mask adeptly confronts important themes without sacrificing the tension-setting mood and blood-soaked action. The small cast achieves successful turns in their roles, particularly Howard, with an emotional, complex performance. If slasher history has taught us anything, it’s that most audiences don’t expect award-winning acting. In fact, over-the-top acting is part of a slasher’s charm. Fortunately for us, Howard and Sarkis electrify the screen with magnetizing chemistry that just can’t be ignored.
With The Red Mask, filmmaker Ritesh Gupta has a hit in the making. It’s hyperaware enough about genre not to be distracting and original enough to stand out in the current slasher renaissance. There’s just a pinch of situational humor to alleviate the suspense and sufficient gore to delight diehard slasher fans. I wouldn’t be surprised if this smashes hard when it sees a wide release.
