Last Year’s Most Disturbing Movie is Now Streaming: “A terrifying look at ultra-violence”
In 2024, horror streaming service Shudder was home to some of the year’s best releases. In a Violent Nature subverted expectations, and Stopmotion was a tour-de-force in practical effects work. Love it or hate it, the year’s best-reviewed horror movie, Late Night with the Devil, was also available on the streamer. This, of course, says nothing of the older gems that are still available in their library. The Others? Shudder has it.
In recent years, they’ve become a must-have for horror fans, regularly acquiring and distributing some of the best movies from a diverse array of genre voices old and new. Earlier this year, they acquired what is possibly 2024’s most disturbing movie, and arguably one of the most disturbing movies of the century. It’s not for the faint of heart, but now that it’s streaming, I encourage you to check it out.
Per Shudder: Obsessed with the trial of serial killer Ludovic Chevalier, Kelly-Anne’s reality blurs with dark fantasies as she hunts for a missing video tied to a 13-year-old victim.
Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms first premiered in 2023 before expanding wide stateside for rental last year. In our review of the film, we wrote, “Reminiscent of late Verhoeven and early Cronenberg, Red Rooms is a terrifying and propulsive look at ultra-violence in the digital age.” Terrifying is an understatement. There are few movies quite as viscerally upsetting as Red Rooms, even as the film wisely withholds violence in its entirety. You won’t see a single thing, but whether it’s hearing unearthed audio or listening to an austere prosecutor read off a list of charges, Red Rooms chills to the bone.
Thematically, Red Rooms bears quite a bit in common with Alejandro Amenábar’s feature debut, Thesis. Both are distinctly about gendered violence, and both use media—whether digital or analog—as a means of exploring our relationship with it. Red Rooms regularly blurs fact and fiction, and its interrogation of modern true crime culture is perhaps the decisive indictment. Red Rooms was even second on my Top 10 for last year. There, I wrote, “Red Rooms gets stranger, more dangerous, more daring, as it goes on, culminating in a finale that will leave you breathless.”
What do you think? Do you have any plans to check out Red Rooms? What other horror titles are worth streaming on Shudder? Be certain to let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
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