Red Room (1999)

Gore? Gore? Where did all the gore go?!

Touted as a nasty, gory torture flick, I rushed out to watch Red Room only to be vastly disappointed with this strictly unentertaining, misogynistic film.

Straight outta Japan from director Daisuke Yamanouchi's twisted mind, Red Room is pretty nasty, but scenes of repeated and violent rape, annoying characters and a thin storyline had me reaching for the fast forward button multiple times. Four people, a 17 year old, a young woman and a married couple, play the King Game for a chance to win 10 million yen. They are locked in a dingy, red-lit room and made to play a card game where whomever pulls the king card gets to have the other players commit horrible acts upon one another. The object is to be the last person standing, therefore winning the 10 million. Things start innocently enough, with a girl being spun around and around in a chair for five minutes straight until she pukes. From there, things escalate and we get multiple violent rapes, including one where the man shoves a lightbulb into a woman's vagina until it breaks inside of her, a woman having to drink pee as one of the players pisses on her, the couple beating the stuffing out of each other, a penis being bitten off and tons more depravity.

Now, I like my depravity as much as the next horror fan, but I just couldn't enjoy myself during this flick. Shot on video, it already looks like an amateur porno, and that's what it felt like for the most part. The thin storyline and the exposition scenes involving the card game felt like they were just there to connect the scenes of rape and torture. It's just too much "shock for shock value," which I find incredibly cheap and just plain boring. Also, it was mostly a splatter flick, using lottsa blood, but kinda lacking in the gore department.

Many fans of the Guinea Pig films or other extreme Japanese cinema will enjoy this, however. If your interest was piqued by the synopsis, by all means check out the Unearthed release of Red Room, but don't say I didn't warn ya!

On Amazon!