Red State is a movie filmed straight from the first draft of the shooting script.

Right from the opening shot of a small town, the cuts of scenery are so quick the audience doesn’t even know what they’re supposed to be looking at. Eventually the camera settles on a mother driving her son to school. On the way they pass a group protesting the funeral of a recently murdered homosexual student. Director Kevin Smith finally lingers on a shot of one of the protest signs featuring the phrase “Anal Penetration” in big, bold letters. We see the sign a few times more before the boy gets to school.

When he does, he explains to his teacher (who doesn’t even seem to mind his tardiness) why he’s late, and she launches into some unbelievably clumsy exposition about the group’s leader, Pastor Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), a nut of a fundamentalist who’s universally despised around these parts and runs his own private Wacoville just outside of town. It’s also brought up at the murdered boy went to that very high school! Two things should immediately pop out: 1) If the kid went to that school, and was murdered two weeks ago, how on earth is it possible that none of his classmates knew him? And 2) If everyone already knows Abin Cooper, then why spend so much time explaining who he is, what he does, where he does it, why he does it…? The answer, of course, is to fill in the audience, but it’s done in such an amateurish way that you can’t believe it came from writer/director Kevin Smith, who’s not only made eight feature films, not only been writing professionally for nearly 20 years, but who’s also a man who prides himself on the quality of his writing.

And this is in the first three minutes.

It’s always nice when we see independently financed and released films get their first trailer to entice an audience. There is no “Bay-esque” flash cuts, no mysterious title cards, just some awesome action and intense sequences thrown together with dialogue reminiscent of Clerks and brought to us by @ThatKevinSmith. Yes. That’s how he’s credited.

That’s how to cut a trailer. And that’s exactly what we get in the very first trailer for Smith’s Red State, the film so indie that he’s releasing it to theaters himself. Here’s the premise for the writer/director’s first horror film to date.

Red State begins by following three horny high-school boys who come across an online ad from an older woman looking for a gang bang. Boys being boys, they hit the road to satisfy their libidinal urges. But what begins as a fantasy takes a dark turn as they come face-to-face with a terrifying “holy” force with a fatal agenda.

Instead of relying on archetypes and predictable formulas, Smith meticulously fashions all-too-real characters, utilizing exceptional performances (notably by Michael Parks) and an intelligent script. His realistic style gives the film an intimate feeling, heightening the terror to biblical proportions. Red State is a shocking new kind of horror film that aggressively confronts higher powers and extreme doctrines with a vengeance.

That’s right, you’ve got the man that brought us the line “snoochie boochies” giving us a religious thriller with a pretty stellar cast. Leading that charge is the legendary Michael Parks, along with Kevin Pollak and John Goodman as the two would-be heroes of the tale (at least that’s what we’re hoping).

Take a look at the trailer after the jump and be sure to hit your local arthouse when Red State hits it on October 19th.

For the longest time, not much was known about Kevin Smith’s newest written film since 2008’s Zack and Miri Make A Porno, which is also the writer/director’s first horror film, titled Red State.

The cast was revealed a few months ago, with a pretty interesting bunch of names like John Goodman, Kevin Pollak, Stephen Root, and Michael Parks. And then we got this synopsis.

Red State begins by following three horny high school boys who come across an online ad from an older woman looking for a gang bang. Boys being boys, they hit the road to satisfy their libidinal urges. But what begins as a fantasy takes a dark turn as they come face-to-face with a terrifying “holy” force with a fatal agenda.

So you’re probably asking yourself what a writer director like Kevin Smith has to do with horror, but this film has allegedly been in his nerdy vault of a brain since the early days of View Askew.

Going along his grassroots style that made him famous 16 years ago, Smith released the very first teaser for Red State on his site, the Smodcast. Check it out after the jump, and catch the flick in theaters early next year.