Thinking About... Red Rooms

We are obsessed with the past. This isn't a new development, but it's perhaps never been more disappointing considering the endless potential for stories that could only arise from our present reality—an absurd cacophony of horrors and anxieties that have evolved from the old into the new. While the human condition remains true irrespective of the age, we must acknowledge that people are facing highly specific problems and situations our species hasn't seen before.

The horror genre in particular has a tendency to cling desperately to its past. Not simply in the way of tropes, as all genres do, but in a literal self-imposed trap in time. At a convention this year, a panel covered the overlap of rock/metal and horror, but was somehow focused on the 70s, thus ignoring modern movements that are far more visceral and horror infused than the vaguely occultic stuff that once had parents quivering in their boots. Meanwhile, some horror writers say they have little interest in writing modern stories because the cell phone's prevalence erases so much tension. Perhaps. But the cell phone is a nightmare in of itself, and it's worth writing stories that incorporate it instead of working around it or pretending it doesn't exist.

Horror was once associated with the castles of Dracula and the Gothics, before moving to the American mansions built by the likes of writers such as Poe, Hawthorne, and Lovecraft. Writers like Richard Matheson, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and of course, Stephen King, then brought the horror to suburbia and reminded us that terror had a place for us right then and there. And yet, while more people live in cities than ever, in environments that provide a different face for the culture, horror on average remains faithful to the burbs.

I think it's true that distance from an event can create objectivity and interest. We write about the past because it's behind us, so we can see it with new eyes and cast new tricks upon the light. But there's still value, and I'd argue a need to tell stories that tackle our current ills. All to say... it's a damn good feeling to watch a great movie that could have only been made today. I think about our relationship with technology on a daily basis, and that manifests in many different forms. Red Rooms taps into that sphere in a deeply unsettling and striking way.