‘I love seeing them lose everything…’
Red Rooms are an internet urban legend that claims there are live streams on the dark web of people being hurt or murdered. While there is no proof anything like this exists or has ever existed, the legend perseveres. Cinema has played with this subject forever in everything from Hostel to Taken but nothing has ever approached this topic in a way as haunting as this film does…
We spend most of the film with Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) – a woman obsessed with a man on trial (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos – chilling even in a non-speaking role) for the horrific murder of three young girls. Kelly-Anne doesn’t speak much either. The bulk of the dialogue comes from the defence and the prosecution in the courthouse or from newsreaders on television. From this, the audience can gather the gruesome details of the three murders.
Jump scares are fun. Gore is fun (sometimes). Psychological horror that leaves you emotionally traumatised? Not so much. There is barely a speck of blood throughout Red Rooms, yet there are moments of true terror here. Scenes that will no doubt come screaming back to me when I awake at 3 am with a jolt. I used to crave that kind of fear. The older I get, the more I find it discomforting. And yet, I can’t deny that the sheer power and impact of Red Rooms should be applauded. It’s tough for a film to burrow deep under someone’s skin and settle in like a soldier behind enemy lines. That’s what happens here. It’s the sound design. The discordant score combined with the heart-stopping screams we hear from the three victims forces the viewer to craft their own murder scenes. And nothing is as horrifying as our own imagination.
Red Rooms is unlikely to find a wide audience. It’s too dark. But while the ending is perhaps a little too ambiguous, this must be regarded as a successful horror film. I was horrified that’s for certain.
