Kevin Smith's Red State

Kevin Smith has finally spilled some details about his next project, a very different kind of horror movie.

"To me there's all kinds of horror, and killing someone's not the absolute worst thing you could do to another human being. The death in a horror movie has always been the money shot in a very exploitative manner. Stabbing somebody and splashing blood all over them is the equivalent to some dude exploding over some broad's face," Smith told Rotten Tomatoes.

Red State is a horror movie about an religious extremist, or so we assume.

"That dude has always fascinated me and he's really informed the horror movie that I'm working on."

Smith is referring to preacher Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. The group is famous for it's "God hates fags" website and picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.

"The movie's called 'Red State' and it's very much about that subject matter, that point of view and that position taken to the absolute extreme. It's certainly not Phelps himself but it's very much inspired by a Phelps figure," revealed Smith. "And to me, too, the notion of using a Phelps-like character as a villain, as horrifying and scary as that guy can be, there's even something more insidious than him that lurks out there in as much as a public or a government that allows it and that's the other thing that I'm trying to examine in a big, big way. It's weird because for a few months I've been saying 'horror movie' and technically it is, but it's also not a very traditional horror movie in the sense that people have been asking me, 'Is it a slasher movie? Is it like the Japanese horror flicks?' It'd be much easier to just show it to them when I'm done and be like, 'This is what I meant.' At which point I'm sure there'll be people saying, 'This ain't a horror movie!' But to me, it is."

God knows, we need more horror movies that actually have ideas and aren't just movie vehicles for the CW star of the week. Smith later wrote on his online website that Red in tht title also refers to BLOOD, an obvious connection which most people have missed. The Clerks director also confirms that the movie will be highly political. Smith plans on shooting Red State later this year in Middle America.

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