This creepy psychological horror reminds us to be careful with our wishes

As sprawling and experimental as the horror genre is, so many movie plots boil down to “be careful what you wish for.” And it’s understandable why so many filmmakers love this premise. In a medium that revolves around people going through horrific experiences, it’s always horrifying to see a person’s own choices come back to haunt them. Yet rarely do these films truly unsettle viewers because their stories are so unbelievable. The concept of angry ghosts or random puzzle boxes limits the audience’s ability to build a real connection with the protagonists and feel their torment – and then there is the horror thriller from 2019, The room.

Led by Christian Volckman, The room opens with a couple discovering a wish-granting room in their new house. Their celebration at the beginning of this discovery turns into something horrifying by the end of the film. It’s a plot twist that viewers have seen many times before, which makes it all the more shocking when the audience learns how much depth these characters have, how their unbridled wishing masks a deep heartache, and how they realize how utterly useless things become when you can have anything you want. The film sets itself apart early on by offering truly expressive characters that audiences can understand and identify with – which is why the horrific things they go through are so excruciating to watch.

The Room (2019)

A couple discovers a hidden room in their new home that grants their every material desire. As they indulge their desires, they soon realize that their dreams have unexpected and sinister consequences, leading to a thrilling exploration of greed and the human psyche.

Release date

6 April 2020

director

Christian Volckman

Pour

Olga Kurylenko, Kevin Janssens, Joshua Wilson, John Flanders, Francis Chapman, Vince Drews, Marianne Bourg, Oscar Lesage

Duration

100 minutes

Authors

Christian Volckman, Eric Forestier, Gaia Guasti, Sabrina Karine, Vincent Ravalec

studio

O’Brother Distribution

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Everything you want is in “The Room”

The room Main protagonists are Kate (Olga Kurylenko) and Matt (Kevin Janssens), a young New York couple who can’t wait to move into their new house. In a way that most other films forget, this plot humanizes the characters, They are portrayed as authentic and outspoken and want nothing more than to live a life together. That goal is slightly disrupted when they discover that the old building was once the scene of a gruesome murder, but that doesn’t stop them from turning it into a proper home. They’re a lovable couple who quickly become sympathetic to the audience, and their discovery of a wish-granting room in the house almost seems earned.

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As the film delves deeper into its more magical elements, it delivers the montages that almost always accompany films like these, with viewers watching Matt and Kate wish on ancient artifacts or a pile of money to celebrate their new find. But even before they start wishing, Kate rightly exclaims how scary this kind of situation is, and critically reflects on how unnatural this phenomenon is and that they shouldn’t play with something they don’t know the consequences of. Her husband convinces her to indulge in magic, and they do; but soon the audience learns why Kate knows how meaningless the things she creates are. She talks about suffering two miscarriages, two deep heartbreaks that broke the couple and helped her realize how little things—even those conjured in a magic room—matter when the world doesn’t seem to want to give her the baby she really wants. It’s a grounded, highly engaging take on the typical wish scenario; one that highlights the subgenre’s flaws and signals to viewers that these are definitely not the frivolous horror protagonists they may be used to. It explains why she knows the room can never make her happy with random items, and why she uses it to wish for a baby instead.

“The Room” is as unconventional as an adoption story can be

The horror of The room begins subtly at first, with this desire creating a baby for Kate to fawn over, while Matt stays at a distance, horrified by what she has done. Some research on his part reveals that the murder committed in her building years ago was committed by a similarly longed-for child, “John Doe” (John Flanders), which gives him two very important pieces of information: everything that stays too far outside the house withers and dies, and the only reason he was able to live outside is because he murdered his parents and traded their lives for his. Matt hides this information from Kate, hoping that she will accidentally kill the baby by taking it outside. Viewers watch in horror as she does this, but this only turns the baby into a small child, Shane (Joshua Wilson). The majority of the film delivers this kind of unsettling shock, as the young boy questions his own existence and the people he believes to be his parents toy with his life, setting up a rollercoaster of discomfort for everyone. He never asked to exist, and yet he finds himself in a world he doesn’t know, with two people who have conflicting views on whether he should live or die. It’s a terrifying situation that the film gives the audience an intimate look into – almost making one understand the horrific things he does at the film’s climax.

Few horror films are as breathtaking as The room final act without resorting to a bloody confrontation between our protagonists and their monster. But The room Fear is, unfortunately for all viewers, much more complex than that. Shane’s desperation to live and be loved by his parents pushes the boundaries of what this magical space can conjure up and traps our protagonists in an endless nightmare. This climax builds on small moments in the film, creating a disturbing ending where the life journey that viewers have witnessed of this man (with the mind of a toddler) pays off in a truly sickening way. Without giving too much away, the film’s ending is one of the bleakest in this subgenre. The nuance this plot applied to its concept is evident in the quietly haunting questions our main couple won’t let go of in the final scenes. And since so much time has been spent making each of them a fully fleshed-out, recognizable character, the audience can only watch in agonizing disappointment as the couple realizes that the room that can grant everything has taken everything from them.

Make a wish in “The Room” and lose everything else

Because as imaginative as The room is that it is certainly not the first film of this subgenre to emphasize the consequences of its concept by placing the characters in a complex emotional situation. Films like wishing you offer a similar approach to the premise. But all too often these films fail to anchor themselves outside of desire, allowing their quirky magic to overshadow the core emotions of the characters and to distract from the feelings that originally drove the characters. With The roomthe subgenre finally has a film that recognizes how little the actual wishing mechanic matters, and instead highlights the plight of our main couple and the horror of getting what they want at a truly terrible price. Because the final scene is so haunting and the film puts our sympathetic couple through such disturbing experiences, there’s only one message audiences can take away from such a disturbing plot: be careful what you wish for.

The room is currently available to stream on Shudder in the US

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