2014 was a huge year for Lance Reddick. He appeared in a small but mighty role in Riley Stearns’ feature film debut, “Faults,” before absolutely blowing everyone away as Major Richard Carver in Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s cult hit, “The Guest.” I caught the film in theaters, having had to drive nearly an hour away to do so, and immediately fell in love with the genre-bending thriller. But a moment that is forever etched in my brain was when Reddick shows up at the Peterson family home for the first time with an armed team, and there’s a firefight. One of my fellow audience members, some random dude from Nowheresville, Ohio, erupted in his seat, screaming, “What a f***ing badass!”
God, was he ever right. Lance Reddick maintained a strong reputation as a force in independent genre films, later appearing in the grisly, weirdly underseen “Monster Party” as the leader of a group of recovering serial killers. He would often play roles of dominance, like Officer Carter in Nia DaCosta’s debut feature, “Little Woods,” or his hilarious turn as Pastor Mike in the comedy flick, “Faith Based.” That was the magic of a guy like Lance Reddick. He could be given a character description of a dangerous military leader trying to subdue his own illegally failed experiment and turn him into a hero, or provide an empathetic approach to healing to people often viewed by society as nothing more than monsters, and have us rooting for his survival and success. No matter what the role called for, Reddick would have the audience enraptured.
