For reasons unknown to many, true crime has become such a big obsession for ridiculous amounts of people. Maybe it’s the desire for something controversial or distressing that attracts us. Maybe it’s a need to dive deeper into conspiracies and to peer into someone’s else life. Who knows?
From Netflix’s Dahmer show to bookshop shelves being filled with it and podcasts being consumed by it. It is everywhere. Human nature seems to attract many with curiosity to these accounts of crime, whether it be a true crime documentary or one of demented fiction. People seemed to be pulled by anything outside of our everyday lives. A hit of adrenaline like many things are.
Is this what true crime does to us?
What I do know is that under the shadows of many film fans, a film called Red Rooms hit theatres over the past few months. But nobody seemed to be discussing it. Its brief stint in some festival circuits last year and lack of a strong distribution is quite possibly to blame. This doesn’t change the fact that Red Rooms is one of the haunting and chilling look at a battle of moral good and evil.
Red Rooms breaks down one woman’s obsession with a fictional serial killer case, which is at the forefront of this film. To many, a reminder of the consequences of what rabbit hole obsession like this could lead one down. Perhaps the film’s most effective feat is its lack of a clear right and wrong. A lead character who can seem like an extremely shady figure at one moment but seem like the hero the next.
The blurring of moral good and evil is this film’s big thematic message. A spit in the face and a reminder to humans of our evil nature, made even worse by the fact it tries to play every event off by making them justifiable. Its ultimate false sense of security is terrifying. Have we gone too far with our true crime obsessions?
The real horror of Red Rooms
It’s horror built through subtly, long floating takes and eerie sound design. It is a slow-burning film with a payoff worth every second of your patience. The climax points unfold like a slow-motion jump scare as the horror consumes us when we reach the points of realization.
One major complaint that people seem to be bringing up is the lack of depth for our main character, Kelley-Anne. A choice that works to this film’s shadowy and dark depths. The ambiguity of a shallow character is fascinating. A lack of knowledge of her builds on this unconscious dread of who she potentially could be.
For those who don’t know, the term ‘Red Rooms’ refers to the urban legend of a hidden website on the dark web, depicting the live torture and murder of individuals. Many films over have tried and miserably failed at effectively portraying the dark web. This film might just take the crown.
What makes Pascal Plante’s depiction of it so chilling is his hiding of what we can see. Instead, he patiently depicts faces of no emotion as they slowly turn to horror. Monitor light reflecting onto faces as the screen turns read. The sound design negates anything else around it expect from the muffled screams coming from her obsession with what is on screen.
The science behind the madness
According to a 2010 study held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, women tend to be drawn more toward true crime cases than men. They seem to be more interested in stories that dive into the killer’s motives and a plethora of information regarding each case. Plante plays on this obsession with our female lead at the forefront. Each character serves as a juxtaposing moral, trying to drag each other back into a sane reality. Our supporting character of Clementine acts as this moral good. She is fascinated by the case as well, but not to the extent that Kelly-Anne is.
Despite not inherently being a horror film, many have described this film as one of the scariest they’ve experienced in a long time. Plante’s reflection on human nature and how evil it can be is perhaps what is driving this. Drilling into our security and making the audience question everything about themselves. Scenes slowly unfold with the utmost uncertainty. Freakish acts but not in a gory of jump scare type of way. The horror of the moral unknown.
Locations are frequently one of the most overlooked aspects of a film. Many great films use their setting as a character to drive storytelling and play against our characters. The duality between the bright whites of the courtroom and the silent and dark apartment of Kelly-Anne. Silence consumes her apartment, and the only noticeable noise is the wind flying through her windows. Dark silence turns to red, overexposed horror fixated on her facial expressions. Her blank facial expressions.
Planned obsessions and voyeurism
Plante’s direction feels so calculated and precise in its execution. Every camera movement, every choice of sound design, and every chilling line of dialogue. Its calculation reflects our leads’ obsession with this serial killer and, equally, the killer’s mindset. Voyeurism is an idea many of the great directors are obsessed with. Brian De Palma most notably. This sexual level to curiosity which this film explores. Plante’s exploration of a character’s voyeuristic nature is at its most evil; we’ve maybe ever seen it. A human representation of voyeur with utmost uncertainty as we, the audience, don’t understand her intentions. Ambiguity is this film’s grace, not hindrance though. The unknown is the best and scariest form of horror.
It is safe to say that true crime has a chokehold over many of us. Its consequences and moral ambiguity are explored to terrifyingly realistic extents in this, one of 2024’s most under-seen gems. Will this wake people up to the extreme levels of obsession displayed here, or will the masses continue to consume every fine detail of the endless horror cases? True crime. One of society’s most interesting oddities.
