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Fantasia 2025: Redux Redux Review
Image Credit: Fantasia IFF
Loading...Directed by: Kevin McManus & Matthew McManus
Written by: Kevin McManus & Matthew McManus
Starring:
Michaela McManus – Irene Kelly
Stella Marcus – Mia
Jeremy Holm – Neville
Jim Cummings – Johnathan
Taylor Misiak – Billie
Dendrie Taylor – Darla
Running Time: 107 minutes
Not Rated
At this point, it’s fair to see that even the most comic book-crazed among us are tired of the multiverse. Whether in Marvel and DC or without, stories of alternate universes have been done pretty much to death over the last several years, to the point that it might seem like there are no more stories to tell about the concept.
Trust in Kevin and Matthew McManus to prove that notion wrong. Redux Redux, which screened at Fantasia Fest earlier this week, takes a grounded approach to its science fiction multiversal revenge thriller. With some captivating performances and a masterful exploration of grief and revenge, this is one multiversal tale that finds something fresh to explore.
As Redux Redux begins, Irene (Michaela McManus) is standing over a burning body tied to a chair, staring down impassively. The man, we will soon learn, is Neville (Jeremy Holm), a serial killer who targets teenage girls. His 12th victim was Irene’s 14-year-old daughter, and Irene has obtained the capability to travel to different universes. In each universe she uses the same routine, which ultimately ends in her stalking and murdering Neville.
While minor details change – the guy she meets up with for sex (Jim Cummings) doesn’t smoke in one, while Neville’s having a different job in another results in a shootout and high-tension police chase – Irene’s routine works in largely similar cycles as she kills Neville, hops in her coffinesque dimension-hopping machine, and moves onto the next.
But her cycle of revenge is disrupted when she encounters Mia (Stella Marcus), a teenager shackled in Neville’s house in one reality. Irene takes Mia with her and they begin a journey to get revenge together – Irene acting as a reluctant guardian to Mia, who’s all in on avenging her deaths across the multiverse. Will the change in routine offer Irene a chance at something new, or will it prove to be her undoing when she is distracted from her self-imposed mission?
At its core, Redux Redux tells an age-old story about the nature of revenge. Irene is driven to keep killing Neville over and over, but in doing so she has forsaken any semblance of a life beyond that, and Mia represents a shakeup in her perspective that gives her the opportunity to see things in a new way.
But the McManus Brothers aren’t interested in just rehashing what’s been done before, and they throw in some narrative curveballs that speak toward a different approach to the topic. It’s still doing similar things and touching on those well-worn themes, but the narrative approach makes the themes less pat. During one stellar exchange between Irene and Mia, we learn that Irene would probably literally not have a life if not for her drive to seek justice, and an emotional encounter for her during a trip to a new universe late in the film doesn’t turn out how we might expect it to.
It helps that they have a phenomenal cast delivering their material. Michaela McMansus gives a wounded but steely performance as Irene. McManus lets us see the pain saturating Irene under the iron dedication but opens her up when Mia enters her life. It’s a nuanced piece of acting that helps ground the film in something deeper than the well-crafted suspense and action. Meanwhile, Marcus (in her feature debut) makes a case for being an immediately rising star as Mia, a role that could have easily been irritating but works because of the pathos we see in the character and the chemistry she has with McManus.
The McManus Brothers made their big splash on the genre scene in 2021 with The Block Island Sound, and while that’s a stellar film this feels like a further maturation for them. The science fiction aspects are low-key and grounded in a way that allows the story to play out without worrying about big effects. It gives the film a deeper sense of realism, which does wonders in terms of making us feel the stakes of the story. This is an intimate story with big ideas, a combination that is rarely pulled off quite as well as this.
Impressively, they also find a way to make our villain feel like a threat despite the fact that five minutes into the movie we’ve already seen him killed three times. That’s down not only to Holm’s performance but the way that the script allows Neville, despite having the disadvantage of not knowing what’s going on, to be more than a body to shoot. The result is a pressure cooker of a film that keeps you on the edge of your seat all the way through the messy (in a good way) final act.
The Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal from July 16th through August 3rd.
