Red Letter Day film review: New movie is a battle royale in the middle of suburbia

Check your mailboxes and be careful, Red Letter Day has arrived. The new film from Epic Pictures is a violent and satirical good time.

Imagine a letter arriving at your home. It’s bright red and inside it introduces you as a player in a high-stakes game. What kind of game, you may ask. Well, one that involves pitting you against another person in the neighbhorhood. The type of game that turns your white-picket suburbia into a twisted battle royale. What would you do? That is the very premise of upcoming horror film, Red Letter Day.

The film focuses primarily on one family who all receive a red letter of their own. They’re suddenly faced with a deadly ultimatum. Kill the person you’ve been assigned to before they kill you first. It’s a simple premise, and one that the characters of this movie quickly realize is all too real.

One of the reasons I enjoyed Red Letter Day so much is because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It understands its ludicrous premise and approaches it with as much fun and biting satire as one would expect from a movie like this one.

More from Horror Movies

• Godzilla Minus One makes the King of the Monsters terrifying again
• A Creature Was Stirring scares up yuletide frights
• Pig Killer (2023): A morally ambiguous dive into shock cinema
• Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls: Demonically fun times
• Tobin Bell stars in new horror movie The Cello

I also appreciated that the characters truly take the time to consider their options. It’s clear the writers wanted to approach this from a realistic standpoint. Seriously, what would you do if this happened?

The plot works as well as it does because it’s easy to see yourself represented in these characters. They’re pretty average people. It almost feels like this is something that could happen in your own neighborhood.

Due to the nature of its concept and the darkly humorous approach, Red Letter Day isn’t the type of horror to make you jump or have nightmares, but it should certainly keep you on edge and thoroughly engrossed in watching the story unfold.

With a short run-time, it moves along at a breakneck pace that compelements the storytelling considering the Edwards family doesn’t have much time to make their decision either. It’s bloody, vicious, and doesn’t give you so much as a second to catch your breath!

Watch the trailer for Red Letter Day below:

Do you plan on watching Red Letter Day? What other horror movies are you looking forward to watching?

Red Letter Day is out in select cinemas November 1 and on VOD & Blu-Ray November 5.