Canada
2023 118 mins
OV French
Subtitles : English
The high-profile case of serial killer Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, STANLEYVILLE), accused of murdering three young girls and streaming their brutal deaths in the "red rooms" of the Dark Web, has just gone to trial and Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy, BOOST) is obsessed. Every morning she makes her way from her luxurious condo in downtown Montreal to the gates of the Palais de Justice. Snuff: what was once urban legend is now a sordid reality that captures the province’s imagination and inspires a group of devoted, conspiratorial admirers. When reality blurs with her fantasies, Kelly-Anne goes down a dark path to obtain the final piece of the case’s puzzle.
Following a wholesome exploration of adolescent love (LES FAUX TATOUAGES) and an Olympic drama selected at Cannes in 2020 (NADIA, BUTTERFLY), Pascal Plante surprises with RED ROOMS, a virtuoso turn towards the true-crime thriller shrouded in horror. In this rare film to evoke both De Palma and David Fincher (those anxiety-inducing long takes! those icy cold manual zooms!), Plante demonstrates immense directorial audacity, blending genres in a finely tuned script pitched as both a realistic courtroom procedural and highly stylized techno-thriller pulp. A breathtaking exploration of many contemporary taboos — be it our common obsession with serial killers, the advent of cryptocurrencies, the rise in popularity of conspiracy theories and the decentralization of powers at the hands of the more tech-savvy — RED ROOMS will stand out as one of the great genre films of the year, in Quebec and abroad. – Ariel Esteban Cayer