RED RABBIT LODGE (2026)

3 stars

Seven Tales. Digital. 13th April

The film opens with a prologue set in the past – we know this as a woman, who we later learn is the daughter of the owner of the house, is seen pleasuring herself whilst watching a VHS tape. A man wearing an odd rubber mask creeps in, videoing her with his camera. They start to have sex together as she thinks it’s her boyfriend – but when he phones and leaves a message she realises her mistake and the mystery man bludgeons her to death.

Under the opening titles our masked killer is seen ‘operating’ on a stuffed toy. Putting in real guts or some such. Not weird at all. All whilst videoing it.

20 years later. Sydney. Victoria (Cate Feldmann) – or Miss Victoria as she likes to be called – mother of the girl we have seen killed, is behind on the mortgage so she puts up a rooms for rent board outside her large house. Oddly the sign is in Italian for no discernible reason, as the movie was made in Australia!

A bunch of interchangeable student types take up residence, under the watchful eye of the old lady – who of course has restrictive house rules, which we know they will all flaunt.

We get fun in the sun. Girls lusting over the buff guys. Casual nudity. Partying. Talking about sex. Blokes acting like a’holes and lots of inane chatter.

Then they learn about what had happened 20 years ago. But not before there is lots more pointless talking.

Eventually the masked murderer from the opener turns up and starts gorily picking them off. The problem here is it takes forever for anything to happen and when it does there is little to no build up or tension generated – plus it clearly doesn’t have the budget to do anything clever or exciting with the various killings. The funky music score is somewhat dated and writer/director Kevin Khachan appears to be going for a retro vibe, though there is nothing new to see here in the slasher stakes. Having said that, there is a certain amount of style on show here and the film is well shot by Shane Kavanagh. According to Khachan’s IMDb profile this debut feature brought him comparisons to Dario Argento. Um, okay…

Steve Kirkham