I love horror movies and nothing scares me more than religious conviction. So I had high hopes for Kevin Smith’s Red State. The funny man (Clerks, Chasing Amy) does right by the horror genre and delivers a mostly thrilling hour and fifteen minutes, including a protracted Waco-style standoff where anything goes. Smith gets dangerous, willing to kill any character at any time. Fifteen minutes before the end, the movie gets unpredictable — it has the potential to be a lot of things, to be awesome. And that’s where it quickly falls apart. Smith gets too tempted to put a fine point on the material, and in the dryest way possible (reminding me of Psycho, another good movie with a bad ending). But at least it’s a good ride up until then. Michael Parks turns in a spooky performance as a Fred Phelps-like preacher, and it’s great to see John Goodman in the role of an agent determined not to let the situation spiral out of control.