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''It Stains the Sands Red'' is a 2016 Canadian-American
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
directed by Colin Minihan. It stars
Brittany Allen Brittany Allen (born February 5, 1986) is a Canadian actress. Her first notable role was as Marissa Tasker, Marissa Chandler on ''All My Children'' from 2009 to 2010, for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in ...
as a woman relentlessly pursued through the desert outside of Las Vegas by a single zombie.


Plot

During a zombie apocalypse, Las Vegas residents Molly and Nick are on their way to meet up with some friends at a remote airfield in order to catch a plane ride out of the country. Their car gets stuck in the sand, and they encounter a lone zombie. After Nick unsuccessfully tries to kill the zombie with his gun, they are trapped in the car while the zombie tries its best to get in. Nick decides to wait for the zombie to lose interest in them, and when it suddenly disappears, they both get out of the car to find the cellphone that Nick dropped before. They need it to stay in contact with Jimmy, who is waiting for them at an airfield. The zombie suddenly reappears out of the night and kills Nick, forcing Molly to take whatever she can from the car and make out across the desert on foot, all the while being pursued by the slow-moving but persistent zombie. Molly comes across an abandoned house, which she temporarily takes refuge in. The zombie follows her to the house, but she manages to evade it. After leaving the house, the zombie starts pursuing her again. She realizes that if she keeps up a good pace the zombie will never catch her. She starts taunting then talking with the zombie, which she names "Smalls", and reveals that she was using Nick to get to Mexico. A sandstorm hits from out of nowhere, and Molly is knocked unconscious. After Molly regains consciousness, she encounters two men, Ted and Jason, who give her water to drink and put her in their air conditioned truck while they help look for her bag, which she lost in the sandstorm. She becomes uncomfortable and decides to leave when she notices that the men are driving a truck that is not theirs and have probably killed the father and son who owned it (their photo is in the vehicle, and Jason is wearing the boy's baseball cap), but the two men threaten to kill her unless she gives them the location of the airfield she was heading to, which she does. Ted decides to rape Molly, and is busy doing so when the zombie recovers and kills him, and Jason drives away. Molly and Smalls continue on foot, and later Molly establishes some ground rules about him not biting her, which he seems to understand and go along with. At the campfire that evening, Molly reveals that she has a young son, Chase. They made tin can telephones to communicate with each other, and the last time that she saw him, she took her can with her so that they could stay in contact. She still has it with her in her bag. The next morning they're traveling to the airfield, when Molly and Smalls encounter a convoy of soldiers. Two soldiers remain behind when they think they spotted something, and Molly unsuccessfully tries to hide Smalls from them, but he staggers out onto the road. She shields him and leads them to believe that he is her husband to protect him. The soldiers begin to leave, but then one shoots the zombie in the leg. It bites Molly's finger, and she is forced to use a large rock to amputate it before the infection spreads. Molly puts Smalls into the small inflatable raft that he's been pulling with her supplies in it, and begins to pull him down the highway towards the airfield, with her finger bleeding profusely. When Smalls falls out, she is forced to kill him with a rock, as he is too weak to travel, and she doesn't want to leave him like that. She takes his wallet and sees who he was in life (driver's license) and that he was probably married. Molly makes it to the airfield, where she meets Jimmy, Nick's friend, after he fires at her with his rifle because he's freaked out (some of his guys have become zombies and are locked up) and high on coke. They get the plane working and prepare to travel to Mexico, but Molly chooses to stay behind. She calls her sister Ali, but learns that her son Chase, who was living with Ali and her husband Blake, has been hiding in their house for several days. Molly decides to rescue Chase, first having to kill a few zombies to retrieve from one of their persons the keys to a convertible that she'll need for her drive back to Las Vegas. Molly makes it to the suburb where Chase lives and finds it deserted, but with the remnants of much violence and chaos having unfolded. Upon arriving at their house, Ali and Blake are dead, but Molly searches upstairs and eventually finds Chase safe and unharmed. She promises never to leave him again and to protect him always. As they're leaving, several zombies break into the house, and Molly shields Chase and begins to wield a large shovel to fight their way through. Begin credits.


Cast

*
Brittany Allen Brittany Allen (born February 5, 1986) is a Canadian actress. Her first notable role was as Marissa Tasker, Marissa Chandler on ''All My Children'' from 2009 to 2010, for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in ...
as Molly *
Merwin Mondesir Merwin Mondesir (born February 21, 1976) is a Canadian actor. He is of Saint Lucian descent. He resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Selected filmography Film * 1997 '' Critical Care'' as Head Injury * 2000 ''Steal This Movie!'' as Private Kend ...
as Nick *
Juan Riedinger Juan Riedinger is a Canadian actor. On television, he portrayed Rufus in the CBC television series ''The Romeo Section'' and Carlos Lehder in the Netflix series ''Narcos''. Other roles he played in television include Dodger in The CW series '' R ...
as Smalls * Kristopher Higgins as Ted * Andrew Supanz as Jason


Production

Filming took place at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.


Release

The film had its world premiere at the
Sitges Film Festival The Sitges Film Festival ( ca, Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya, links=no) is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Spain, specialized in fantasy and horror films, of which it is considered one of the world's foremost in ...
in October 2016. It was also screened at the 2017
LA Film Festival The LA Film Festival was an annual film festival that was held in Los Angeles, California, and usually took place in June. It showcased independent, international, feature, documentary and short films, as well as web series, music videos, episod ...
. It began a limited theatrical release on July 28, 2017.


Critical reception

Dennis Harvey of ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' praised Allen's performance, and wrote, "Watchable if never really scary or funny enough to leave a memorable impression, this middling endeavor should nonetheless pull in a fair number of home-viewing horror fans with its offbeat theme and lurid title." Rob Staeger of ''
LA Weekly ''LA Weekly'' is a free weekly alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Jay Levin, who served as president and editor until 1991. Voice Media Group sold the paper in late 2017 to Semanal Media LLC, whose paren ...
'' wrote, "what could have been a wordless slog is inventive and even buoyant". John DeFore of ''
The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' wrote, "Genre fans will likely have a hard time coming to terms with this tonally confused and sometimes grating film, whose commercial prospects are limited despite the appeals it makes to some underserved audiences".


References


External links

* {{IMDb title, 5735280 2016 films 2016 horror films American zombie films Films set in deserts Films set in the Las Vegas Valley 2010s English-language films 2010s American films