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Movie Review: “The Black Room” Tries Way Too Hard To Be Terrible

[yasr_overall_rating]
 

Paul and Jennifer Hemdale have just moved into their dream house. But their happy marriage is about to be put to the test as they slowly discover the secret behind the black room in the cellar.

From the very first scene, it’s clear exactly what kind of movie “The Black Room” wants to be. The obligatory haunted house movie-prologue features a woman being raped by an invisible creature. It’s pretty disgusting and the filmmaking is bad, and the rest of the movie isn’t any more pleasant or sophisticated. We meet Jennifer (Natasha Henstridge) and Paul (LukasHassel); they are a couple who have just moved into the house where the previously mentioned scary stuff happened. It has everything you would expect in a B movie: unconvincing special effects, dialogue that ranges from overly-expositional to absolutely cringe-worthy, a ridiculously overbearing score and lots of sex and violence strung together by a dumb, and a poorly-written story.

It’s not much fun though. The cast is mostly unimpressive, Henstridge is uncharismatic, and Hassel is stiff and has an inconsistent accent. Former scream queen Lin Shaye makes an appearance but doesn’t get a chance to showcase her talents. The film is written and directed by Rolfe Kanefsky, who clearly loves these types of movies, but maybe doesn’t have a grasp on what makes them entertaining, not just gross.

I don’t always like these types of movies anyway, so it is completely plausible that other people will get more enjoyment out of it than I did. But for me, the best bad movies are those that fail to realize an absurdly specific vision, and are so earnestly goofy you can’t help but laugh. “The Black Room” is neither unique nor sincere enough. It’s not “so-bad-it’s-good”, it’s just bad.

Now playing in select theaters

 

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