Movie Review: "Red Rooms"; When True Crime Obsession Goes Too Far

11/12 ForReel Score | 4.5/5 Stars

Like a bolt of lightning, Red Rooms’ tightly wound, minimalist approach to serial killer court room thriller strikes with a loud and mighty crackle. In a crowded genre and oversaturated podcast culture, true crime sees its fair share of internet sleuths and arm chair detectives that are constantly reinforced on the big screen and thousands of procedurals. Red Rooms manages to not only break through the noise and turn the genre on its head, but do so with such veracity and intensity and uniqueness, it becomes a gripping white knuckle experience that’s impossible to forget. It lets its themes and commentary do the talking, forgoing scenes of exploitative violence in exchange for unsettling atmosphere and stirring unpredictability. Red Rooms is one of the most disturbing films of the year, and it doesn’t need to show you anything horrific to get under your skin.

That kind of undeniable unease without grotesque imagery is difficult to make even for the best of thriller filmmakers, but writer and director Pascal Plante masterfully centers his film on the rising dread of his subject, the muddling of his protagonist’s motivation and the confident immersion into the darkest corners of the internet. Red Rooms is an assured piece of cinema - one that starts off simple enough and slowly but surely delves deeper and deeper into places and worlds we’d rather not see. The expert pacing traps you with a captivating lead performance from Juliette Gariépy as Kelly-Anne, a reclusive fashion model obsessed with a serial killer trail taking place near her high rise apartment. The killer in question is accused of murdering three girls in a “Red Room,” a dark web chat room in which people pay to watch snuff films. Two of the videos have been recovered and are used as evidence in the trial, but the third video – the one that seems to show the killer completely - has gone missing from the web. Kelly-Anne’s obsession with case grows more and more disturbing, and she begins to blur the lines between interest and obsession as she searches for the video herself.

Gariépy is a tour de force in Red Rooms, and Plante makes no apologies for her shortcomings and escalating actions as her obsession with the case drives her to do some unbelievable things. But it is in this unapologetic approach to a protagonist that separates Red Rooms from its counterparts and delivers a gripping, unrelenting watch. Kelly-Anne is an enigma to everyone around her and to the audience, her motivations shrouded in the dark web of her own mind and never fully revealed to us even as we’re hurdled toward one of the most disturbing climaxes I’ve seen in a long time. It makes everything in Red Rooms unpredictable because you start to understand that there are very few lines Kelly-Anne won’t cross and you never know which ones she will choose to step over. Plante uses this volatility to take us deeper into his critiques of true crime culture and technology, the extreme measures serve as a reflection of ourselves and a reality that rings ever true: the internet is dark and full of terrors.

You won’t find a more riveting psychological/courtroom thriller than Red Rooms. The self destructive nature of obsession on full display, we are forced to reckon with our relationship to true crime and technology and how harrowing those two things pair. It is morbid and haunting and not for the faint of heart, which is remarkable considering we as the audience never see the Red Room videos. It relies on Gariépy’s terrific performance, stellar sound design and a piercing score to deliver all the chills and thrills you crave from depravity. It is unlike anything you’ve seen, and I can’t remember a film that shocked and surprised me as much as Red Rooms did. This is one of the best films of the year you haven’t seen, and I encourage you – if you dare – to change that.