Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Red Sands’

Written by Scott Edwards  

​Taking direction from somebody else is never easy, in fact it is downright difficult when you do not agree with them. People that are above you at work always feel entitled to be able to tell you what to do without being questioned. These are not the people you want to be working for, especially if they are not willing to elaborate on the what and the why when you are going to be doing something. If anything, this all goes back to an important lesson in life, that respect is earned, not given.
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After getting his orders to move out to the desert and keep an eye on the road, Staff Sergeant Marcus Howston readies his men. Even though they do not truly understand what they will be doing, they are to follow Marcus’s lead at all costs. Getting knocked off the road by an enemy IED, the group is told to move out and secure the area. Roaming through the hills, they find something that appears to be out of place, an idol. 

Not knowing what it is doing in the middle of nowhere, Wilcox comes up with a theory that it was being praised in secret, as idol worship is not allowed in the area’s religion. But his thinking goes a little bit deeper as he starts to think that it might be something to hold a Jinn from being released upon the world. As Jinn’s do not like humans at all, it is probably better that it is in the middle of nowhere and right as the men are ready to leave, Davies takes a shot at the idol and hits the old statue square between the eyes. Watching as the stature crumbles to the ground, the group has no idea what they have just unleashed.

Getting to their new base of operations, the group has no idea where they are, much less where the road is that they are supposed to be protecting. Hunkering down for the night, Keller wakes up to a vision from his past that is rather upsetting. Keeping it to himself, the group goes out and tries to find the road that they are supposed to be patrolling and when finding an abandoned town, they have more questions than answers. As a sandstorm moves through the area, the group gets a special visitor when an Arab woman comes into their lives. But there’s a bigger problem brewing because now the visions are not only in Keller’s mind, but they are also infecting everyone else as well. Seeing their dastardly deeds being replayed in their heads, it is difficult to know what is real and what is a memory and that can drive a person insane.

I must admit that I had pretty low expectations when coming into this movie, as I have had to turn off plenty of Jinn based movies in my time, but I wanted to see how the story played out. It was actually pretty cool seeing something jump from body to body and turn the men against each other. Even though the woman who joined the group may not have been the Jinn, she was carrying it from place to place and I can see how easy it would be for the spirit to make others bend to its will. With plenty of gun fire, best friends turning on one another, people being driven to madness, a road that you never see and a powerful spirit taking and using memories against its prey, it really is a pretty good punishment tale. I have never tried to break anything that seemed to be old and spiritual in my life and after watching this, I will never try to. Stay Scared.

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