Fanboys Anonymous

Does the name Tara Cardinal sound familiar? If not, you may as well familiarize yourself with it. Her rise is inevitable. What does she do? Oh, just film, books, comics, everything we love. This fangirl is an indie everything, and she's quite good at it. Tara Cardinal is an actress, director, martial artist, sword master, and humanitarian. A saddening but also triumphant fact is that her work is based on her own childhood struggles, and her story delivers a strong message about female empowerment. She became one of the first women to write, produce, direct, and star in a fantasy action franchise—and she performs her own stunts. She's an actress actively seeking empowering roles in movies of all genres.

This young lady's first film, The Legend of the Red Reaper, written, directed and played by her, begins with our heroine, the daughter of a demon and a human witch. She's traded to the demon father for nothing more than a bottle of his evil enchanted blood, probably to be used as an aging deterrent. In this demon's care, she is beaten, used, and torn down every day for years until her rescue. Beyond her torment, she is groomed to become the female, medieval, demon version of Blade, the vampire slayer. The prophesying of her witch mother, a family talent, has foretold her future as Red Reaper, deliverer of the humans from the terrible demons. The question is, will she be able to live up to that fantasy? I'd love to divulge the answer, but will do my best not to.



In my opinion, it was mad fun—diabolically fantastic. Whenever I review an indie fantasy/dark fantasy film, I always like to compare it, quality wise, to Earth Sea, a small-budget favorite of mine, because I love the Earth Sea story and the filmmakers did quite well with what they had. My favorite thing about Tara Cardinal's film is that the music never stops, the action rarely stops, and the story never gets boring. If that isn't enough, Tara Cardinal seems like she's pretty skilled with the sword, and the film has, possibly, my favorite ending quote of all time.

That's not the end of it, though. Tara Cardinal is everywhere. Her debut novel, Sword Sisters: A Red Reaper Novel, is a fantastic read, packed with action. The book is set before the film and fills in all the details you might have felt like you were missing. My biggest question was, "What was Aella doing before she set herself on a warpath with the demons who were supposed to be dead?" The book answers that question, and it does it with an impossibly better story than the film offers.

Sword Sisters smacks our heroine between a rock and a hard place, fighting for room to breathe from her klan elders and her foretold responsibility as the last reaper—The Red Reaper—but longing for the freedom to choose. Retaliating against all the pressure and running from her responsibility, the young woman treks into the wilderness in hopes of finding a caring soul who once helped her out, perhaps someone she can trust and someone she might even love.

Instead of the man from her dreams, Aella runs into a young woman with a knack for insulting others and, soon enough you find, a knack for getting into trouble. Set in such an old time, these qualities in young independent women are not something of which local men are fond. However, Aella, being a strong feminist warrior, takes to the young woman, and they kindle a friendship bound in battle. They meet not a moment too soon, because Amelia, the young woman, is to be the village's next virgin sacrifice to the god who supposedly lives in a cavern nearby.

Upon further inspection, they find that someone or something is definitely living in the cave and definitely is not an average human; whether it is a god or not remains to be seen. This read is epic! The book is loaded with beasts and packed with action, and the heroine's inner dialogue is pretty funny and seemingly realistic as far as thoughts go. I give it an instant 5/5 stars.

Generally, at this point, I like to explain my grading and offer my two cents, if it's even worth that to anyone. As a matter of opinion, Tara Cardinal and her cowriter, Alex Bledsoe, should change nothing. I'm told it's difficult to improve upon perfection, and it's few and far between that I find books I wouldn't change for the world. So you must know I'm ecstatic to report that I think Sword Sisters is perfect, and I wouldn't change it for the world. The entire Red Reaper series will be gold, I'm sure, and I can't wait to read the next. Until then, it's on to the comic series. Let me know what you think downstairs!

Indy ComicCreators/Authors/Filmmakers get reviewed HERE.

Make sure you join the Legend of the Red Reaper team for a high-tech streaming event. Anyone that has an internet connection and a computer can watch the movie while it's screening at the Florida Renaissance Festival, join the Q&A via webchat, and participate in the tweetathon on Twitter. This is the last screening before the big DVD release. If you can't wait until April 15th to pick up the DVD and don't want to pay the $15 per movie theater ticket, you can join the screening for only $8 per household and find out what the critics have been raving about—before the movie is released.

PLUS—you'll be sent a special link where you can JOIN the Q&A and ask your own questions of actress/writer/director/sword guru TARA CARDINAL, legendary comic book artist GEORGE PEREZ, actress/singer/best selling author SHAYNE LEIGHTON, martial artist/exec producer SEAN WYN, and composer/disc jockey JOSHUA PARISH GOMEZ (son of Taboo from The Black Eyed Peas).

PLUS—you can tweet with the cast, crew, and Renaissance Festival audience! #RedReaper #Girlpower or tweet @theredreaper. Send your comments, questions, and opinions!