The buzz preceding the “Red Riding” trilogy came via film journals and British TV blogs, and the eventual screening across one long but tense afternoon lived up to expectations. Based on a quartet of novels by David Peace (one was not filmed), “Red Riding” is an exceptional crime drama, a sprawling narrative that in the UK was primetime viewing but in the States is being released theatrically.
Set in the grimy industrial north of Yorkshire, and the West Riding district, the trilogy follows a secret history of corruption, big business and serial killing. This is the dark, depressed North of the Moors murders and the Yorkshire Ripper (who makes an appearance in the middle film), but also of ex-mining towns, destitute backwater towns, and wounded and angry male psyches.
