The Black Room

Jason and his sister Bridget have a nice home in the hills, and there is a special room that is available to rent. It is all black, with candles and other amenities that couples might find wonderful for special occasions. Jason has a genetic disorder, thalassemia, meaning his body does not produce enough hemoglobin, so he needs fresh blood. Larry is married to Robin, with two young children which really does not allow for much intimacy. Larry finds an ad for the room, and decides it is great but while it has spiced up their life, he assures Robin it is all in his mind. One day returning from shopping, Robin finds a crumbled up newspaper that has the ad, and finds keys in the glove compartment. She needs to investigate. And Jason needs more and more blood. Sets up the tension in the third act. It is fairly mediocre, and the colors are very strong, as were in many films of that period. The trysts are somewhat tame, and the blood 'donations' are quite fake.

You know, going into a flick like this, especially something from 1982, you have to adjust your expectations; you anticipate the sleaze, the budget issues, and the narrative shortcuts. The Black Room delivers all of that, but it hits you with a strange, lurid style you do not often see outside of European horror. This film feels like a Giallo took a wrong turn at an American drive-in and became obsessed with sex, money, and hematology.

The early pace is sluggish, I will give you that, it really does take its time setting up Larry's dissatisfaction and Robin's frustration, and frankly, some of that dialogue could have been handled visually. But the moment Larry, played with appropriate skeevy confidence by Jimmy Stathis, meets Stephen Knight's Jason, the mood shifts into something seriously unsettling. Knight, and Cassandra Gava as his sister Bridget, are the real reasons this movie lingers. Knight never chews the scenery in a role that begs for it, which makes his quiet, controlling creepiness so much more effective, and Gava oozes a dangerous, exotic allure that completely sells the premise; they play the seduction beautifully, they are a genuinely lethal team.

What absolutely stuck with me, the visual details I keep thinking about, center around the craft. First, Robert Harmon's cinematography is genuinely strong, giving this bargain-basement picture a much richer look than it deserves. Then, there is that whole transfusion apparatus: The production design around the black room itself, with its scores of candles, and that elaborate, practical effects machine that drains the victims looks terrifyingly authentic. Watching the blood spurting and being meticulously bottled feels gruesome and clinical all at once, which is a perfect marriage of high-concept exploitation and grindhouse execution. I was also completely engrossed by the scenes between Clara Perryman's Robin and Stathis's Larry. Robin is written as more intelligent and troubled than most horror heroines of the period, reflecting a real, painful rift in their marriage. That humanity feels jarring in the best way, making you actually care about someone who is completely peripheral to the movie's central, bloody hook. It gives the final twists a little extra weight they certainly needed.

The score, from James Ackley and Art Podell, contributes perfectly to this unsettling atmosphere, it is appropriately weird and keeps everything feeling off-kilter. The film is ripe with sex and low-key dread, and while Larry's motivation feels weak, it works as a pure cautionary tale. You are not watching it for narrative logic, you are watching it for the unbridled, visceral spectacle, for the way the camera lingers on the opulence and the blood.

Ultimately, who should see this movie? I can wholeheartedly recommend The Black Room to fellow fans of stylish, obscure cult horror, especially those who appreciate inventive, highly atmospheric practical effects and don't mind a sluggish start. If you want slick pacing or characters who make morally sound decisions, you should definitely steer clear; this is a film for the obsessed, the late-night viewers who love the deep cuts, the ones who appreciate a truly perverse aesthetic, an elaborate death machine, and a pair of perfectly cast sibling psychopaths.

A man rents a room a brother & sister so he can have extramarital affairs away from his own house, however his landlords are draining the blood from everyone who enters the room.

An extremely dark and original take on the vampire genre. Set in the modern day (1981 when it was made) unlike many vampire movies of the time, the setting does give it much more credibility than its Gothic counterparts. The draining sequences are very dramatic, no fangs here but a massive machine which pumps out the blood into some very gory scenes. The performances are a lot better than you might think, the 4 leads are surprisingly good as is most of the supporting cast. The second half of the movie is great, tension mounts very well, the pace improves and the last 10-15mins are superb and quite scary at times. The film does have a couple of issues though, in the first half pacing is quite sluggish, as the set up sequences to key scenes take an age and at times fail at keeping the viewers attention, editing is also quite strange at the beginning (although that could just have been the copy I watched 1983 UK VHS).

Overall a very good surprising watch, if you enjoy weird fairly gory horror there should be plenty for you to enjoy here. Interestingly this quite rare horror was put onto the DPP's section 3 list here in the UK (meaning the police could seize it from the shelves), a real shame as this well made little horror didn't deserve the negative attention it got.

Well, if nothing else, "The Black Room" at least deserves a few extra points for originality! In an era where most American horror were derivative and tepid slasher knock-offs, this film comes with a totally creative and unique (albeit utterly grotesque) storyline that is certainly trashier, sleazier and nastier than all those dull slashers. The protagonist of "The Black Room", a seemingly average middle-class guy named Larry, is a heroic role-model for all of use horny males! Dig this: because his sex life with his wife Robyn suffers from routine boredom and children always interrupting at the exact wrong moment, Larry invents a fantasy place - the black room - where he satisfies his sexual need with other women. He shares his lewd fantasies with Robyn in order to excite her, but Larry actually also does rent such a room for real! He picks up horny students and prostitutes like it's the most normal thing in the world and takes them to his secret for sweet-loving, while later that same night in the marital bed his wife whisper: "Tell me again about the black room, honey". Ha! Larry is awesome! What he doesn't know, however, is that the proprietors of the room, a very seductive brother and sister, are sick psychos that murder the lust objects in the black room and transfuse their blood into the brother's body because he supposedly has a rare blood disease! "The Black Room" obviously isn't an Award-winning masterpiece, but it sure is a compelling, unpredictable and darn hot 80s horror oddity! When Robyn discovers Larry's deceitful little secret, and plots her revenge together with houseowner Jason, the film resembles more of an early 70s European sexploitation movie rather than an 80s US horror flick; - especially with that randomly bonkers vampire twist-ending! He may only have made less than a handful of films, but the least you can say about writer and (co-) director Norman Thaddeus Vane is that he tried different things (see also "Frightmare" that was released one year later). Beautiful people in this film as well, both males and females. It's one of the earliest films of Christopher MacDonald and Linnea Quigley never looked prettier in her life.

Larry, a dashing family man, decides he needs some escapism in his life and rents a room to fulfill his darkest fantasies. The room he finds is within a Hollywood Hills mansion and is decorated seductively in black with lots of candles and drink. His doting wife goes along with the fantasy, but what she doesn't know (if you can believe it) is that the lurid tales of prozzies and pickups he's ravished in the room are actually true. And what Larry doesn't know is that the kooky siblings from whom he rents the "black room" are after blood and not his rent! This is a quirky and unique low-budget film that delivers in some areas. It manages to go from creepy to sizzling hot to awkwardly funny from scene to scene. The acting is excellent for a low budget-80s film, especially by the four relatively unknown leads. Jimmy Stathis (Larry) manages to pull off loving father and husband in some scenes and complete sleazeball in others. He's a character that is difficult to root for (and even watch at times), but thankfully he isn't the only protagonist in the film. His wife (played by the fantastic Clara Perryman) smiles and laughs along with Larry's kinky fantasies that don't involve her, which is an aspect of the story that comes across as silly considering she knows that he really does have this "black room." But once the story gets going and she becomes more involved with the plot, it's easy to get past this. The demented landlord sibs steal every scene they're in. Stephen Knight is believably lecherous and Cassandra Gava is both sexy and insane as his caretaker and BDSM-loving sister. The atmosphere, especially in the titular room, is eerie and alluring. The score is inventive and one of the movie's high points. So while some of the plot premises are a bit brow-raising, and the horror in the film didn't seem to fully lift off, this is an original and steamy genre movie in which I found enough things to enjoy. Look for Christopher McDonald and Linnea Quigley in small roles.