Reviewed by Jesse Miller, MoreHorror.com
It’s hard to push out a fantasy epic these days and have audiences not reject it for being too derivative of what has come before but I think The Legend of the Red Reaper manages to still find that spot to be entertaining without feeling overly familiar and thus distracting.
Writer/Director/Actress Tara Cardinal’s directorial debut is an entertaining slice of epic high fantasy that proves to be quite rollicking and rousing as it chugs along from killer set piece to killer set piece.
It’s got all the ingredients that you need for a good fantasy tale – strong characters, entertaining sword fights, good versus evil, an ancient prophecy, a strange but yet intriguing fantastical world and of course, one of my favourites – a good dose of violence thrown in for good measure.
Tara Cardinal stars as Aella, a spirited young woman who is part of a league of ancient warriors, known as The Reapers, that have been in conflict for centuries with a band of demonic figures that plague the realm.
Aella is also half human-half demon – an intriguing little notion that is thankfully given a little complexity enough to make it work throughout the film, leading to a few interesting story developments that caught me surprise.
I’ll stop there with the story tidbits because for it’s 100 minute running time, there is A LOT of story and mythology to get used to and I wouldn’t want to ruin even the slightest bit of story development because frankly, I found it quite fun to learn the mythology and the world piece by piece as the film went along.
From a technical viewpoint, the fight choreography is well done and thrilling (though a little stilted at times), there’s solid acting across the board from this wonderful and quirky cast of characters – especially Cardinal, who is wonderful and radiant as the titular Red Reaper – and the feature is accompanied by and accentuated by a rousing musical score that adds sparks to the action on screen.
However, other technical aspects that I found somewhat jarring were that in certain sequences, the lighting was incredibly dark and made particular fights difficult to follow and in other moments, the sound was really low and a few conversations were a little hard to make out.
Other than that, what you’ve got here is just a fun, somewhat cheesy – but in a great, entertaining kind of way – fantasy feature that is evidently crafted with a lot of passion for its characters and the fantasy genre.
So what if it’s not entirely perfect or doesn’t have a Hollywood budget? It’s charming and entertaining in its own right and sometimes, that’s all you need to hit that spot.