The Legend of Red Room

Sometimes an underground film becomes legendary becomes it avalanches into something more.

During Insano Steve and myself's heyday of looking for the most fucked up films to watch, we'd have to make contact with horror traders to get our fix. I documented this in a post about Horror Trading circa 2002. It was a weird time and the standard protocol was this:

• You'd dub a movie on VHS in SP mode and make sure to tell your trading counterpart the quality (1st generation dub, 2nd, 3rd, etc)
• You'd trade lists and each person would choose what they wanted (this would entail 1 for 1's, 2 for 2's and sometimes 5 for 5's)
• Send it out as quickly as possible

Of course there were bad traders that burned you (you'd send them stuff but they wouldn't or take their sweet fuckin time to send the tapes to you), but your reputation grew on news groups and message boards if you were a prolific trader. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED was a term you wanted.

But this brings us to how we got two Japanese films called Red Room and Red Room 2. After searching for this movie at horror conventions, we met up up with a one GoreMaggot (a legendary trader) at Chiller. After getting his trading list, many trades were initiated. But I believe Insano Steve initiated a trade for the Red Room double.

Trade for a fucked up Japanese film we've never heard of? Yes we want that! The fact we traded for a movie with no subs and was only in Japanese made it exciting.

Here was my original review from my trading list:

you want underground mofo? this is it. straight from the motherland of sick shit...Japan. holy depravity batman! let's start off by saying this flick had no english subs, no dubbed version...just straight Japanese language. so this negates what i know of the real plot. the movie starts off with an extreme closeup of 2 women french kissing while a guy watches and you know what. anyway 4 people (3 girls and a guy) are trapped in a "red room" and seemingly are talking, arguing and playing a card game. the game consists of 4 cards 3 of which are numbered 1,2, and 3 and the 4th has a crown on it. they each pick a card. the person who selects the crown card gets to order 2 participants to do very sexual and depraved shit to each other. this is where we enter guinea pig territory.

***SPOILERS AHEAD!!!***

a woman is twirled on a chair until she blows chunks, a man has a hair dryer inserted into his mouth and hot air blows into his brain, the man inserts a screwdriver and bulb into a woman's ummm...well you know. guy beats the crap out of a woman and then rapes her. mr. wang gets separated from mr. rapist guy. and more fucked up shit then imaginably possible.

downright disturbing. totally fucked up. sicko perverted atrocities. the insanity of a movie with no morals. lowest common denominator appeal. underground, bootleg, cancerous disgusting. this is it. guinea pig is still the pinnacle but red room has its moments.

This was one of the movies that had THIS company send me a cease and desist e-mail! After I got this movie I had added it to my horror trading list which led to some bullshit copyright crap. In any case, the legend of Red Room was born.

A ridiculous Japanese gore movie, a horror trade, watching a movie without subs and a cease and desist letter. That is the Legend of Red Room.

Intrigued by this movie? Well here is the trailer and now you'll know why we had to see it!





Isn't that just uber fucked up?