Red Rooms

Red Rooms (Les Chambres Rouges) (2023)

Runtime: 118 minutes

Directed by: Pascal Plante

Starring: Juliette Gariepy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Locas, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Natalie Tannous

From: Nemesis Films Productions

Featuring DuckDuckGo, Chloe Ting, TOR & racquetball. For awhile now I’ve known of this French-Canadian film and it even played at more than one Regal Cinema in the area briefly back in September. In hindsight, a big mistake not making the theatrical journey. My increasing ambivalence towards modern genre movies (especially one heavily-hyped) was a reason why. The streaming rental happened as the price already dipped to a level where it was only a few dollars purchase.

The picture concerns the trial of a serial killer who brutally killed a trio of teenage girls & filmed it for the dark web. The focus isn’t on him, though, and only a brief non-graphic amount of that footage is shown—rather, it’s on Kelly-Anne, a fashion model who is obsessed with this case to the point she attends the trial on a daily basis. Now, I’m unfamiliar w/ the Canadian judicial system in general, let alone in Quebec. In the Montreal trial, both the prosecutors and defense wear a specific outfit and the defendant sits in a glass both. Was that only done because of the nature of his crimes? Or, was it done as one of a plethora of subtle clues revolving around Kelly-Anne? Perhaps both.

I went into the film relatively blind; to grant the same favor, only a few vague specifics will be mentioned. Kelly-Anne is a rather peculiar character; a loner who spends plenty of time online. She eventually becomes buddies w/ Clementine, a groupie of the serial killer. How depressing that this is a concept true to life. The keystone theme of the film is the obsession that people have w/ true crime; I do sometimes watch true crime & listen to those podcasts but more on that at the end. That obsession is carried to a frightening end.

Red Rooms is modern in its focus on technology; Kelly-Anne’s apartment is even run by an AI program she curated herself. Thankfully, while Les Chambres Rouges (to use its original title) uses long takes and slow camera movements, it is not a movie that falls into the modern tropes that I frequently bemoan. Ambiguity is used to make the film quite unsettling & to increase the intrigue surrounding the protagonist. Red did not need to show any explicit, gruesome moments to craft a tense piece of work. Naturally, the plot and its methodical pacing won’t be for all Letterboxd members. For me, though… I don’t know if “pleasant” surprise is the right word to use but it did exceed my expectations.

In this haunting tale which was filmed quite well (those that love weird aspect ratios, this was done in 1.50:1) had a unique score and a distinctive cinematographic look, the performances of Juliette Gariepy as Kelly-Anne and Laurie Babin as Clementine were tremendous. I wouldn’t have been as invested if not for those actors and how they brought those difficult roles to life. Viewing the film last night then sleeping on it, Red Rooms deserves a high rating due to effectiveness & the presence of scenes which will stick w/ me for a long while.

As for me and true crime, in the past I’ve viewed programs like Unsolved Mysteries, Dateline, 48 Hours and Forensic Files. Now, I don’t really view any of that on broadcast or cable television; YouTube, there’s been some Mr. Ballen videos but that’s it. Podcasts, that is a scant few despite the glut of options. In short, it’s me not liking the host(s) and/or the tone. The number of shows that are COMEDIC despite featuring murder and other abhorrent behavior is just disrespectful and disgusting. Talk about spitting in the face of the victims. The main two I listen to are The Trail Went Cold (covering missing persons) and DNA ID, where cold cases are solved via DNA. Both are serious and as there are other podcasts-not to mention other things, like watching movies-I am preoccupied w/, it’s not worth the effort to find other similar shows.

It makes me glad that among my obsessions, I am not focused on morbid topics like Kelly-Anne was.