In the Quiet Before the Screen: A Tale of Obsession
Imagine a heroine who arises before dawn, not for prayer or pooja, but to stake her place in a courtroom. Kelly-Anne—portrayed with chilling restraint by Juliette Gariépy—waits at the door of justice, fasting not from food but from sleep, her eyes hungry for the spectacle of a trial. The trial of Ludovic Chevalier, accused of heinous “red room” murders, becomes her world—twisted, morbid, and utterly consuming.
This opening, both cinematic and emotionally resonant, sets the tone for a film that is more about what lies beneath the skin than what is shown on-screen. It’s a journey that contemplates voyeurism, isolation, and the dangerous seduction of darkness.
The Anatomy of Story: A Synopsis with Soul
Kelly-Anne is a sophisticated model from Montréal, living in a glassy high-rise. But her soul drifts in the murky depths of the dark web—she hides behind a webcam voice, an AI assistant, and poker screens, where she wins digital battles with ice-cold precision.
The trial—centered on Chevalier, accused of livestreaming violent snuff films in exchange for cryptocurrency—unfurls like a public ritual. Kelly-Anne becomes a fixture in the courtroom gallery, attracting attention for her silent intensity and unsettling detachment.
In court she meets Clémentine, a young woman who idolizes Chevalier, convinced of his innocence. A fragile bond forms—one that promises solace but delivers even more chaos as both women spiral toward obsession.
Kelly-Anne abuses her few skills: online sleuthing, poker, tech-savvy hacking—to locate the missing video of a victim, Camille, whose resemblance to her becomes something eerily personal. In an unsettling, silent climax, she infiltrates the victim’s life—not to seek redemption, but to assert control. She plants the crucial video evidence via a USB stick, then takes selfies in the girl’s uniform before allowing the video to make its way to court.
The trial ends. Chevalier pleads guilty. Closure for the families. But for Kelly-Anne—there is no repose. Her hunger remains. She’s lived off of obsessions before and this one only whets her appetite for morbid mystery.
Behind the Curtain: Gariépy’s Inner Landscape
Juliette Gariépy, once emerging from Concordia University’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, came to Red Rooms as a promising actor—actor, model, documentary filmmaker, acting coach. Her life was still unfolding—but this role turned heads: she won the Prix Iris for Revelation of the Year in 2023, and earned a Canadian Screen Award nomination for her lead performance in 2024.
In interviews, she shared how she steered clear of stereotypes. Kelly-Anne was not a victim of trauma, she said, but someone who craved sensation to feel alive. A modern creature of habit, she struggles to feel anything in a world that numbs emotional edges with noise and information oversaturation.
To sustain Kelly-Anne’s emotional trajectory, Gariépy employed a unique technique: dividing her descent into phases, coded by colors. This helped her navigate scenes shot out of order—keeping the character’s fragile balance intact.
Even Clémentine’s presence stirred something in Kelly-Anne, reminding her of a time before loneliness became her refuge—and triggering pain when that fragile connection fractured.
The Man Behind the Mask: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos as Chevalier
As the masked Ludovic Chevalier, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos brings decades of experience to the role—from supporting turns in Lars and the Real Girl, Max Payne, Land of the Dead, to writing and directing Stanleyville.
His Chevalier is eerie not because he speaks softly, but because he refuses to reveal himself. His masked face becomes a screen for projection—a symbol of ambiguity, doubt, and our own voyeuristic gaze.
McCabe-Lokos approaches characters with authenticity and depth. He has often advised young artists to “make things feel authentic… do your research… don’t be too careful about offending people.” In Chevalier, this ethos resonates—his subtle menace carries the film’s moral weight, even in silence.
The Music of Madness: A Symphony of Noise and Classical Echo
Pascal Plante’s brother, Dominique Plante, composed a score that is a character in itself. A fusion of classical strings and metallic dissonance, it weaves Kelly-Anne’s descent into a soundscape that feels both hypnotic and disquieting.
Alongside inspirations like Lingua Ignota and Uboa, the film achieves a haunting audio identity: one where a heartbeat can kill, and silence is an echo of the void.
The Mirror It Holds: Emotional and Cultural Impact
In a swirl of social media and true crime podcasts, Red Rooms acts as a cinematic mirror: are we not all Kelly-Annes in some way—curious, detached spectators to real suffering?
Critics called it “a haunting and timely trip down a particularly morbid rabbit hole.” Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic reflect high acclaim; fans shared that even without blood, the film unsettles more than gory horror could.
Entertainment outlets listed it among the best scary movies to stream—particularly praising how it forces audiences to reconsider their true-crime consumption.
Interestingly, piracy made Red Rooms a cult favorite before its U.S. release, an ironic echo of the film’s themes—underground fascination fueling notoriety.
The Guardian noted Gariépy’s performance as “genuinely unsettling,” a sociopathic intensity seldom seen on screen. The Times reflected on how horror becomes, in this film, about the act of watching—and questions why we choose to keep watching.
In Quiet Reflection
In the storytelling traditions of India, we honour the layers behind actions—what drives someone to the edge, what stories remain unspoken, what loneliness pushes a soul to stare into darkness.
Kelly-Anne’s story is gaze turned inward—where every click, every night spent in court, every digital poker win, becomes not power, but a knife sharpening her disconnection from life.
The film invites us to step back and ask: where do our obsessions hide? Is it in midnight browsing, binge watching, following tasteless threads? Or in silence, the echo of loss, the unspoken voids we try to fill?
Red Rooms doesn’t answer—but it holds up the mirror, and asks if we dare look.