Red Room -1999 – Long time no see
Red Room has been on my bucket list to see for many years now. I had the chance to buy it several years ago but I thought it was too expensive and since then it seems to have become very OOP. I have seared for it everywhere but haven’t found it for a reasonable price. But then, out of nowhere, A friend of mine actually had it and was willing to lend it to me. Oh, happy day! Finally, I was going to see this much-anticipated movie from the land of extreme movies – Japan. One of the lands for the extreme films I should say because there are other countries in the world that produce over-the-top gore movies. There are several German examples for instance. But there is only one country in the world that shocked us all with the Guinea Pig series. And Now Red Room, and that’s Japan.
Japanese Extreme
I can’t say that I’m an expert on Japanese Extreme film in any way or Japanese film in general. But I know that there has come a few crazy ideas from Japan. Not only for the horror of course. I think film-wise, the most strange world is that of porn. It’s not only intercourse as in a regular porn flick, they have incorporated fantasy elements as tentacles in their animated adult film and so on. I’m not really into it so I can’t give any good examples but you know there are a few.
And I guess some of them have kinda been recorded unanimated to, with real people. A strange thing though. Even if the Japanese movie can go out of their way to shock you and be incredibly violent, pubic hair or genitals are not allowed. They are always blurred out, which is kinda annoying for a westerner. It’s just a totally different culture in the far east.
Bu getting back to Red Room. The premise is pretty simple. Four people are gathered together and are about to play a game. The prize if you win is 10 million yes, which according to an online currency calculator would be about 77 thousand USD. It might have been more when Red Room was made in 1999 I don’t know. It really doesn’t matter, it’s a lot of money nevertheless. The game more or less is about the four of them drawing cards. One of the cards has a crown on it and whoever gets that card gets to decide what the other should do. As the other get number, one to three, the “king” can order number 1 to do something with number three without knowing who is who.
Married Couple
What kinda complicated things are that the two of them are married to each other. In theory that would be that they together have doubled chances of winning the prize but man, do they have a strange relationship! I don’t think I ever saw a more submissive man portrayed on film – ever! The other character has very strong traits too. I wouldn’t say that they’re wooden but at least very eccentric! Oh, and the point of the game is to be the last one who hasn’t given up and refused to follow the orders from “the king”.
It starts off pretty slow and the story is not told in strict chronological order either. In fact, the opening scene is kinda erotic and absolutely not representative of the rest of the movie. I must confess that I was rather confused. It’s a kissing scene with kinda romantic music with people watching the event. But, as you all figured out, it will escalate from there. One thing leads to another. The money at stake and the fact that each person kinda wants revenge on what they have been exposed to escalate the violence exceptionally. That is exactly what we want when it comes to a movie like this of course.
Off Camera
But, even if it’s really gruesome, most of the really horrible stuff is done off-camera. I guess to get away from needing to blur genitals. I usually say that what we can imagine is much worse than what any movie can actually show us. But it also depends on the tone of the movie and the intent of the movie. There are some splatter effects in Red Room that prohibit us from taking it too seriously. That, in combination with what we don’t actually see, makes Red Room a disappointment for me. I was expecting over-the-top violence and gore but got robbed of that experience. I don’t regret that I saw it but I think I had too high hopes and had imagined it to be something else than it really was.
