"Red Rose" 3-Episode Review: British Teen Horror-Drama Builds Intrigue But Struggles with Balance

Release Date: February 15, 2023 Platform: Netflix

In a month dominated by new seasons of the popular series You and Outer Banks, Netflix debuts like teen horror-drama Red Rose can easily find itself overshadowed. Co-produced for both BBC Three and Netflix, this British series follows a group of friends who find themselves lost in tragedy as they succumb to Red Rose, a mysterious phone app that comes with promises, demands, and threatening consequences.

Set in the North West England town of Bolton, the series quickly introduces its merry band of misfits, centered initially around best friends Wren (Amelia Clarkson) and Rochelle (Isis Ainsworth). As school has let out for the summer, the pair find a strain in their friendship as their priorities begin to shift, leaving Rochelle feeling more like an outcast than she already is. She finds a sense of hope in the form of an app called Red Rose, which initially provides her with things her lower class family could not afford before quickly spiraling into otherworldly experiences and fatal consequences. Now, Wren has also downloaded the app and she, along with Antony (Ellis Howard), Ashley (Natalie Blair), Noah (Harry Redding), and Taz (Ali Khan) are determined to keep her and themselves safe as they seek to find out what or who is behind Red Rose.

This initial batch of episodes clearly exhibits the series’ strengths and weaknesses, with its grounded and natural characters operating within a recycled plot formula. These actors portraying characters in their mid-teens sound just like their age group, with dialogue that rolls off naturally and mannerisms that remind you starkly of those annoying years. Being set in England, it can be difficult to catch some of their words with their dialects, something that subtitles quickly fixed, but their teenage angst rings through regardless. Beyond the obvious inspiration for the show being the harmful addiction of technology, there are themes of bullying, mental health, suicide, and classism that are also seeped throughout the character relations. The characters, thus far, appear willing to capture the rawness of this emotionally charged aspects.

While the character work is strong, the plot is very systematic and hits all the expected beats of similar concepts. Something bad happens because of a new and mysterious element that has been introduced in their lives, so they will ignore every other conventional aspect of their lives to discover what is behind it and find retribution. Though very cookie-cutter, it is not inherently bad, but the various ideas the narrative is attempting to juggle is messy and bogs down the show’s ability to breathe. There is a supernatural element that pushes ghosts and virtual reality entities, there is a religious aspect and exorcisms, then the standard teenage drama of intimate and parental relationships all mixed in with the series’ heavier aforementioned themes. Even with a fairly straightforward story, the show still suffers from a bit of a sub-genre identity crisis that will hopefully be resolved with a more even tone in its latter half.

The first two episodes are pretty strong and are led by Isis Ainsworth’s performance as Rochelle, who provides a complicated and well-fleshed out character. Falling into the goofiness of its premise and the teenage reaction to it all, the show exhibits some sense in knowing when to pull back and fall into its more serious tones. Unfortunately, as the show shifts more towards the rest of the characters in the third episode, it starts to feel a bit more shallow, shifting more into its plot-driven narrative and away from its characters. Even so, there a great deal of intrigue in the series’ premise and enough threads get pulled on to build interest in the next episode. But if you really need a reason to give Red Rose a shot, than look no further than its absurdly 90’s soundtrack that includes Barbie Girl, Rhythm is a Dancer, and the saddest version of the trance song Better Off Alone. It might be a two-episode wonder, but it could easily offer enough mindless teenage thrills to be worth seeing it through.

---

RATING: 📱📱📱. 75 / 5

---

If you enjoyed this content, please follow Geeky Therapy on Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date with all posts and reviews.

---