Aella (Tara Cardinal) is a Reaper, which is a sort of semi-demon
stronger than any human and more cunning than most demons. Though
generally benign, Reapers are feared by humans as they sometimes lose
control over their inborn rage, and then ... Aella had an especially
traumatic childhood, since as a child she was given away by her mother the
Teller Witch (Eliza Swenson) to demon overlord Ganesh (Ray Eddy) for a
flask of his blood which will grant the Teller Witch everlasting youth -
even though Ganesh has slaughtered Aella's village ... Aella was later
rescued by her own people, the Reapers, but since she's constantly plagued
by memories of her youth. Her master Kreios (Cal Simmons) keeps her rage
under control mostly though, and then there's of Eris (David Mackey), a
handsome young man she's madly in love with (and vice versa) ... but Eris
is a human, and not only that, he is the crownprince only days away from
coronation, and he's promised to another woman, Indira (Christina Daoust).
He of course promises Aella to marry her ... but she has the feeling that
that won't happen, and everyone from her father (Tom Nowicki) to Kreios
tells her to forget about him - which causes her to lose control over her
rage and seriously injure Kreios during a training session. Shortly
thereafter she's led into an ambush by the men of S'Grun (James Michael
Gibson), a human ally of Ganesh, and they capture her, drink her blood
(which is supposed to make humans strong) and then leave her to die. But
Aella is saved by her mother she has learned to hate, the Teller Witch,
who gives her own life to save her daughter, and Aella finally learns a
few things about her past and her destiny: Most of the horrible things she
seems to remember are actually in her future she only knows from a
prophecy, and her mother has given her away not for eternal youth but to
save her whole people. Thing is, things are starting to happen not some
time in the future, but right now, at Eris' coronation - and when Aella
returns, most of her people are already slaughtered by Ganesh's hordes,
Eris has gone missing in action, and his court has mostly been imprisoned
by Ganesh. The Reaper-rage of Aella grows to new unknown heights, and
now nothing will stop her until she has faced Ganesh ... but will she be
able to control her rage well enough to actually defeat him or perish in
the battle? And where in the world has Eris gone ... The
Legend of the Red Reaper took the better part of six years to finish -
which is an incredibly long time, not only for a low budget movie. But not
only bearing this in mind, the film looks very homogenous, it's a very
well-told and well-paced movie that relies heavily on atmosphere rather
than empty spectacle, physical action rather than computer trickery, dark
central characters rather than genre clichées, and that dares to not bore
its audience to death with a pointless origin story but trusts the
viewer's intelligence to fill in a few blanks to tell the actual story,
which is tight, suspenseful and also violent enough to come across without
some extra trimming. Add to this very well-shot action scenes and Tara
Cardinal at her best heading a dedicated cast, and you've got yourself a
winner. Highly recommended!
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