Frightfest London 2025: ‘Redux Redux’ Review
Stars: Michaela McManus, Stella Marcus, Jeremy Holm, Jim Cummings | Written and Directed by Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus
Written and directed by sibling team Kevin and Matthew McManus, Redux Redux is a terrific sci-fi revenge thriller that takes a fresh approach to the multiverse and gives the concept the shot in the arm it needed after being all but worn out in Marvel movies and the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once. It also makes out the McManus brothers as a serious genre talent to watch.
Michaela McManus (the directors’ sister) plays Irene Kelly, a vengeance-obsessed woman who travels through multiverses, repeatedly killing the man (Jeremy Holm) who murdered her daughter. Having exacted bloody vengeance hundreds of times, she has become deadened to the experience, but that changes when she rescues teenage tearaway Mia (Stella Marcus), one of the killer’s potential victims, and the pair end up travelling to another multiverse together while fleeing the police.
When Mia learns what Irene is doing, she wants to exact some vengeance of her own, especially after she finds a multiverse where the killer succeeds in murdering her. At the same time, her connection with Mia awakens something in Irene, and she tries to stop Mia going down the same dark path.
The script is excellent, particularly in the way it drip-feeds information, so the audience has to do a fair bit of enjoyable work in the early stages. On a related note, the details of exactly why Irene is able to travel between multiverses are nicely handled, and the steampunk aesthetic of her multiverse travel device is both inspired and very pleasing, not least in the narrative practicalities it requires (It’s basically a heavy metal coffin that needs to be carried everywhere).
Redux Redux’s most inspired idea is also its simplest – Redux Redux posits a world where the multiverses are almost identical, with only tiny details being different in each place. So there’s no multiverse nonsense to contend with (everyone having googly eyes or whatever), and that idea also heightens the existential despair of Irene’s journey, as she encounters hundreds of worlds where her life has been ruined.
There are several nice ideas along the way too, most notably Irene’s relationship with Jonathan (a note-perfect Jim Cummings), a guy she has picked up at a bereavement group meeting and had one-night-stand sex with hundreds of times.
Michaela McManus is superb as Irene, convincing both in the hard-bitten action scenes (she has strong Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 vibes) and in her more maternal scenes with Mia. Marcus is equally good, generating strong chemistry with McManus, while Jeremy Holm is an effectively nasty piece of work as Neville, the overweight short-order cook-slash-serial killer.
In terms of direction, the McManus brothers maintain a thrilling pace throughout, with the singular exception of a slightly draggy sequence early on, where the story spends too long with Mia before Irene reappears. Crucially, the McManuses are savvy enough to deploy a variety of great action sequences from multiverse to multiverse, including car chases, explosions, shoot-outs and hand-to-hand punch-ups.
However, what really turns Redux Redux into something special is that the film completely nails the emotional element, with a number of satisfying pay-offs. Similarly, the climax is genuinely heart-in-mouth thrilling, even though by that time you have seen the same villain die over and over again. No mean feat.
In short, Redux Redux is a superbly made multiverse thriller that delivers perfectly on its inspired premise, thanks to a sharply written script, confident direction and great performances. Here’s hoping somebody throws money at the McManus trio (Michaela included) after this, because it will be fascinating to see what they come up with next.
**** 4/5
Redux Redux screened as part of this year’s London Frightfest.
