The Dark Red tries to be two films at once, but fails in its attempt. The two-thirds of the film is a slow-burn psychological thriller, while the last third turns into a revenge narrative. The shifts in tone and pacing is as jarring as that in Tony Scott’s Man on Fire, but at least Scott’s film was better scripted and had Denzel Washington to carry it.

The story concerns a young woman named Sybil Warren (April Billingsley) who is committed to a psychiatric hospital. Sybil possesses a telepathic gift, but her new doctor (Kelsey Scott) believes she continues to show signs of mental illness. Sybil is convinced her baby was stolen following a cesarean section by a group of people who harvest blood for its telepathic qualities. But the evidence provided by her doctor points to the contrary.

Most of the story focuses on Dr. Deluce and Sybil’s sessions together. These scenes are very intimately shot in close-ups. As the two speak, the backstory slowly is revealed like that of memory. The question is whether we as viewers perceive Sybil as an unreliable narrator.

Flashbacks interrupt their sessions, filling in the puzzle pieces. We know from the prologue that Sybil was found in a trunk as a young girl by a child services officer following the death of her mother. We also are clued into her romantic encounter with a man named David Hollyfield (played by co-writer Conal Byrne) following Sybil’s adoptive mother’s funeral. She later becomes pregnant and David brings her home to meet his family.

David’s parents are sinisterly played by character actors John Curran and Rhoda Griffs. In terms of casting, Curran and Griffs project a sense of unease when they’re introduced. They own a house, conveniently located down a secluded forest road, that is decorated with religious iconography that would be at home in a Russian Orthodox church. The air the Hollyfields give off recalls that of the Armitage family in Jordan Peele’s Get Out.

Sadly, the film’s shifts in tone and pacing derail the narrative as soon as she is out of the hospital. Sybil enters full-on vigilante mode. Disguised and armed with a gun, she tracks down David and forces him to take her to the house where she last saw her baby. The conclusion is a mix of bang-bang-shoot-’em-up action and a weird telepathic battle with imagery that feels lifted from David Cronenberg’s 1970s and 1980s output. Unfortunately, there were no exploding heads a la Cronenbergy’s Scanners or Brian De Palma’s The Fury.

Kudos must be given to April Billingsley, who imbues Sybil with a fierce determinism. Even as the script’s mechanics begin to wear down, her performance elicits empathy and compassion from the viewer. When Sybil squares off against David’s parents, she is unrelenting in dishing out the punishment she believes they deserve.

Overall, the competent acting on display is not enough to elevate the gritty material. The aforementioned editing and poorly realized plot points in the script, unfortunately, weigh down. What’s left is a mess of a film, but one not without its charms.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars