Redux Redux Fantasia Review: The Multiverse Gets Dark

From brothers Kevin and Matthew McManus, Redux Redux is a slick action thriller that offers a dark new take on the multiverse.

It’s a real family affair, with the directors’ sister Michaela taking on the lead role of Irene; their mother, Patricia, also makes a brief appearance. Irene is a woman on a mission, determined to hunt down Neville (Jeremy Holm), the man who murdered her daughter. But one kill won’t suffice – she wants revenge in every dimension. We begin with a few routine slayings – by now Irene knows all the details of the killer’s life, from his job and home to the place where he hides his victims – but the job gets increasingly messy the more she uses her magic multiverse machine (the script smartly skips over the science of it all). 

It’s when things don’t go to plan that we get to see the McManuses’ aptitude for action set pieces. Violent altercations and police chases are expertly choreographed, with rapid tracking shots and ear-splitting sound design bolstered by Paul Koch’s fierce electronic score. Throughout these impressively immersive scenes, I was reminded of Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin; a similar visual style, subject matter and ability to make the most of a modest budget allow it to hold its own against more substantially funded fare.

Eventually, Irene reaches a universe where Neville has kidnapped his next victim, Mia (Stella Marcus). She rescues the teenager, losing this version of the killer in the process, but gaining a new friend and something resembling a daughter figure. Both characters are profoundly damaged – Irene by her loss and resulting bloodlust, Mia by her kidnapping and a traumatic childhood – so their somewhat reluctant coming together is mutually beneficial. It’s what the viewer needs, too; Mia is a comic foil to Irene, in whose company alone we’d find ourselves unbearably depressed. The teen is sparky and vociferous, thrilled to be on the ride and to feel a gun in her hands for the first time, but her vulnerability is just as well communicated by Marcus’ sophisticated performance.

The two main characters contrast in more ways than one: not only is there a tonal dissonance, but a closeness to the younger character that we never quite find with the protagonist. McManus does a fine job interpreting Irene, but her role is so defined by grief that little else cuts through. We learn next to nothing of what her life was like before her quest, nor of how she discovered the technology that kicked it all off. This is a problem in a story about a woman’s loss of humanity – if we don’t know who she was to begin with, it’s harder to judge the person she has become. Opening in media res and following a linear narrative certainly makes for a more kinetic experience, but the bathetic emotional climax in the penultimate act suggests something has been lost along the way.

What might be the film’s biggest strength is how it defies expectations surrounding its central concept. All of the worlds Irene travels to are, at least to our eyes, identical, forming a sobering depiction of the multiverse contrary to the carnivalesque efforts mentioned above. Infinite realities means infinite pain, infinite grief, infinite trauma, and so our characters are forced to look inwards for the solutions to their struggles. In a sub-genre that’s already starting to feel tired, Redux Redux goes in a brave direction, and the big studios should take note of its creators’ talents on both the page and the screen.

Redux Redux had its Canadian premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival, in competition, on July 22-24, 2025. In the U.K., the film will be screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival on August 16.