Red Rooms (2023) – Film Review

Director: Pascal Plante
Cast: Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Locas
Certificate: 18

By Roger Crow

The high-profile case of serial killer Ludovic Chevalier has just gone to trial, and Kelly-Anne is obsessed. When reality blurs with her morbid fantasies, she goes down a dark path to seek the final piece of the puzzle: the missing video of a murdered 13-year-old girl, to whom Kelly-Anne bears a disturbing resemblance.

That’s the premise for this Canadian thriller which, unless you speak fluent French, demands your full attention.

It opens with a lengthy courtroom scene in which the accused’s alleged crimes are revealed in precise detail. He sits alone in a glass booth while the prosecution explains to the jury the degree of intense evidence they will face in the coming days, and why she almost quit the case, but owes it to the victims and their families.

“Ramping up the suspense”

While Red Rooms takes a while to get going, there’s no doubt the filmmakers do a good job setting their stall out with an impressive one-take tracking shot. But it’s also quite a pedestrian way to grab viewers. The haunting scene 90 minutes in, involving a blonde woman with a tooth brace, might have been a better prologue; a throw-forward to grab the audience by the lapels and thrust them into the more slow-moving intro. But writer/director Pascal Plante does a good job of ramping up the suspense regardless.

And stars Juliette Gariépy and Laurie Babin are also excellent in a saga about the dark web that many have seen countless times before. After all, it’s been a staple of horror thrillers for more than a decade.

Some might prefer it in a dubbed version when it’s finally released on VOD or disc, but whichever version you see, it’s worth at least one look.