When Grief Becomes a Weapon, Who Survives?

Read Time:5 Minute, 31 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Redux Redux
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Genre: Horror, Thriller, Science-Fiction
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 47m
Director(s): Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus
Writer(s): Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus
Cast: Michaela McManus, Jeremy Holm, Stella Marcus, Jim Cummings, Grace Van Dien, Taylor Misiak, Dan Perrault
Where to Watch: shown at the 2025 Fantasia Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: Some genre films demand your attention with spectacle, others with emotion—but REDUX REDUX doesn’t ask. It claws at your nerves from the moment it begins and drags you through a haunting, sometimes exhilarating, multiverse nightmare that’s as much about personal ruin as it is about revenge. It’s brutal. It’s hypnotic. And it’s almost impossible to watch without wanting to scream at the screen: “Please stop!”

At the center of the film is Irene Kelly (Michaela McManus), a mother devastated by her daughter's murder, who builds a routine around traveling to alternate universes just to kill the man responsible—again and again and again. Played with an all-consuming fury by McManus, Irene is less a protagonist than a force of nature: violent, fractured, and determined. Every version of her life revolves around the same inevitable outcome—finding Neville (Jeremy Holm) and ending him. Yet the tragedy is baked into the premise: no matter how many versions of him she kills, the void never closes. And maybe it never will.

What’s fascinating is that REDUX REDUX could have gone the big-budget sci-fi route, crammed full of lore dumps and techno babble. But the McManus brothers, also behind THE BLOCK ISLAND SOUND and AMERICAN VANDAL, aren’t interested in the mechanics of multiverse travel so much as the emotional cost of staying in the cycle. The device that allows Irene to jump between dimensions—while clunky and unique—isn’t glorified. It's just a grim tool in her obsessive mission. There's a clever inversion of what multiverse movies usually chase: novelty. Here, sameness is the horror. Each world is almost identical, which only intensifies the futility of Irene’s crusade.

The film doesn’t concern itself with the bigger existential implications of the multiverse; instead, it focuses the lens on one woman’s self-destruction. The idea that grief can metastasize into addiction isn’t new, but it’s rarely explored in this genre with such an unapologetically bleak tone. REDUX REDUX doesn’t bother to sugarcoat Irene’s descent—she’s not a hero; she’s an open wound in constant motion.

McManus delivers a striking balance between brute physicality and moments of emotional collapse that never feel contrived. Her interactions with Stella Marcus, who plays a younger girl that could be seen as a possible stand-in for Irene’s daughter, offer some of the only scenes of genuine tenderness. But even those moments are tinged with dread. In a film where death repeats itself like clockwork, intimacy is fleeting.

Supporting roles by Jim Cummings and Grace Van Dien provide brief respites from the grimness, offering just enough humanity to contrast the singular obsession driving Irene. The score by Paul Koch is equally unforgiving—electronic pulsating, thumping reverb, and sudden stingers that seem to mimic Irene’s heartbeat as it races toward the next confrontation.

Despite its many strengths, the film’s rigid adherence to its looped structure may prove challenging for some audiences. REDUX REDUX fully leans into repetition—not as just a narrative device, but as an intentional and unrelenting part of its design. That commitment comes with risks. As Irene jumps from one universe to the next, the subtle variations between timelines begin to blur, making each setting feel like a slight echo of the last. This cyclical design reinforces the stagnation at the heart of her character, but it also has the potential to wear viewers down. The pacing doesn’t offer much in the way of traditional escalation; instead, it builds its tension through attrition, forcing the audience to feel the exhaustion and futility that Irene herself is experiencing. That creative choice pays off thematically, underscoring the film’s meditation on addiction, grief, and the illusion of progress. The multiverse here isn’t about awe or discovery—it’s a series of slightly shifted prisons. And that maddening familiarity becomes the real horror: the idea that no matter how far you go or how many chances you take, the outcome never changes.

The violence here isn't fun; it's bleak and increasingly devoid of meaning. That’s the point, of course, but it may not be for everyone. The film’s final act attempts to pivot toward closure, but wisely refuses easy resolution. There’s no grand realization, no cosmic answer. Just the question: how far are you willing to go before you’ve erased every trace of yourself?

REDUX REDUX is not for those who want catharsis. It’s for viewers drawn to the dark spiral of grief, to the idea that even infinite possibilities may not be enough to undo a single trauma. The repetition becomes its own prison. For a film that travels across endless worlds, it ends up staring into the same void—over and over.

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[photo courtesy of MOTHERSHIP MOTION PICTURES, BLUE FINCH FILMS RELEASING, SABAN FILMS]

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