The Room
Hi, movie lovers, it is Abeegail again. What if you could get all the things you want, money, diamonds, luxury, great food. Where there's no limit to what you can desire or wish up. Is that an ultimately good thing or does unlimited wishes corrupt.
The Room, Directed by Christian Volckman. It's a psychological sci-fi horror follows a couple, Kate and Matt, who move into an isolated house and discover a hidden room that grants any wish spoken inside it. At first, it Is cool you get anything you wish for; Money, art, luxury, freedom, anything they want instantly materializes in the room. But what happens when desire and wishes has no limits, would there be consequences.
The core of the movie is simple and almost fairy-talelike, the room grants you anything you want, but the horror in this movie is that it portrays the fact that humans ultimately don’t actually know what they want, they only know what they think they want. Moreso, the movie also exposes how human desire can become antagonistic when there's no leash on it. The room holds no dark entity that wants a life. It's grants wishes quite literally, but it's how human uses this power that brings out the true horror of the movie.
At first, Matt and Kate, start wishing for small things, small luxuries, money, objects, but the further they go the more they wish for stuff that are deeply emotional and quite irreversible. The film slowly reveals a psychological truth, people don’t stop wanting things just because they get them, they start wanting more extreme versions of the thigs the thin they want.The movie feels less like horror and more like a psychological experiment. What would happen when two people were given absolute power, but only had each other to interpret its consequences?
While all the wish granting is a major theme in the movie, the emotional core of the film is the disintegration of Kate and Matt’s relationship. Played by Olga Kurylenko and Kevin Janssens, the couple initially appears grounded but it slowly loses it's stability. But the room doesn't create these problems it just amplifies it. It exposes a relationship that hides layers of grief, untamed desire, want, obsession and insecurities. The more you watch the more you realize that the room doesn't punish you for your wishes but you are confronted with the consequences of the wish you think you want. The room doesn't interpret intention, it only execute the desire, this means each wish reveals the inate personality that might be unknown to even the character itself.
Although on thing I'll critique is that it leaves conventional horror, where the scary part is in the mystery. It over explains the mechanics of the plot. Horror thrives on uncertainty, when the plot is over explained it loses its flavor.
The Room is a smart, psychological thriller film that uses a simple supernatural premise to expose human weaknesses. It mostly explore the complexity of human desire rather than more supernatural route. Its strongest theme is how it exposes desire itself into the bad guy; not in a way that says wanting things is wrong, but in a way that says unchecked wanting reveals how fragile human stability actually is. If leaves you asking what would be left of me if my desire had no limit, would I still be the person I claim I am.
It's Still Abeegail ✨💗
Thanks for reading 🥹
The images are screenshots from the movie.