No Real Danger

I first heard about Red Rooms on the r/Horror subreddit. Some folks there were praising the movie for how intense it is. And some folks in the comments didn’t like it. That’s typical for any Reddit thread of course. But the film kept coming up in the comments of “best of the year” and “most devastating” type threads. That’s how it got on my radar. I like it when horror films are polarizing. I enjoy finding out for myself which end of the  spectrum I fall on after I’ve seen those types of films. This October’s 31 Horror Films to Keep You Up At Night^TM challenge was the perfect time for me to finally watch this one and find out where my allegiances lie – with the fans or with the haters. This is my 27th of the month. I plan to review 31, but I’ll let you in on a little No Real Danger behind the scenes secret… I’ve watched 41 new-to-me horror movies already this month! That’s one upside to my unexpected unemployment! Let’s get into it, shall we?

Kelly-Anne is a savvy Parisian model and professional online poker player with a chic apartment outfitted with a highly customized AI assistant. She is unhealthily obsessed with the trial of man accused of making torture/snuff films for sick fucks on the darkweb to pay to view. She even goes so far as to sleep in an alleyway loading dock near the courthouse to get in line early enough to be in the public gallery of the courtroom where the man is being tried. There she meets Clementine, another young woman obsessed with the man and the trial. Clementine thinks the man cannot be guilty because he has kind eyes. Kelly-Anne is cagey on the subject, but takes Clementine under her wing. As the trial progresses and details emerge, their friendship and the depths of their obsessions are tested. 

I’ll let you off the hook right away here and tell you that I liked this one! But… I don’t know if I would call it horror. Sure, the subject matter is horrific and it is on Shudder, but there is no real fear or peril to be found beyond worrying if Kelly-Anne is going to blow her life up or not. The film is really a character study that doesn’t answer all of the questions the audience has about the character. It makes for a darkly intriguing watch given the character’s inexorable pull toward the vile killer and his trial. Juliette Gariépy and Laurie Babin are excellent in the leads. Babin sells the wide-eyed naif perfectly and Gariépy is inscrutably driven to presumably disastrous ends. (we presume until we get an answer) It is akin to watching a car accident. There is nothing we can do to change the course of events, but we cannot turn away out of morbid curiosity. It is a laudable achievement of storytelling that the story is so engaging without ever showing the violence that is at the center of this tale. In this case, the old filmmaking rule of “show, don’t tell” is turned on its head with engrossing results. 

The Final Cut: Red Rooms will appeal to horror fans because of its deeply unsettling subject matter, but it is really a character study thriller with zero depictions of violence. The leads are excellent and the writing compelling.