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Movie Info
This kinky, low-budget horror film stars Stephen Knight and Cassandra Gaviola as siblings who own a home in Beverly Hills. They rent specifically to couples with unusual sex lives, they practice voyeurism, and they drain their blood with pumps and hoses in the back room. Complete
with gore, S&M, and some rather unusual touches, this independent chiller is better than expected, with some genuinely inspired moments to make up for its lack of production values. Cult favorite Linnea Quigley appears briefly. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
with gore, S&M, and some rather unusual touches, this independent chiller is better than expected, with some genuinely inspired moments to make up for its lack of production values. Cult favorite Linnea Quigley appears briefly. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
The Black Room – 1984 – USA – Invasion of Terror Box Set by Brentwood Entertainment
Written and co-directed by the man (Norman Thaddeus Vane) who served up the under-achieving “Frightmare” starring Ferdy Mayne in ’83, I didn’t exactly relish sitting through another 90 minutes of his rather tepid brand of horror, but the OCD completist in me needed confirmation of his inadequacies. “Frightmare” (not to be confused with the Pete Walker masterpiece from ’74) had a grand premise, fading horror star Conrad Radzoff (a fun amalgamation of Vincent Price and Boris Karloff with a haughty and sadistic edge) attends a college lecture as the guest of honor and proceeds to keel over and die. His corpse is stolen from the mortuary by his adoring fans (a la “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things”) who want to give him one last hurrah as the centerpiece of their morbid shindig in his abandoned gothic mansion. Conrad promptly returns from beyond the pale and begins picking off the kiddies for their gross effrontery.
Besides introducing the horror world to Jeffrey Combs (2 years before “Re-Animator”) and giving the wonderful Ferdy Mayne his best horror role since Polanski’s “Dance of the Vampires” (“The Fearless Vampire Killers”) in ’67, the film fell a bit flat with an amateurish script and pedestrian direction. So I hesitantly entered “The Black Room,” and boy am I glad I did! What I encountered was a searing psychological drama that dealt with the sexual insecurities of aging and monogamous familiarity, punctuated with marvelously restrained overtones of horror. I was pleasantly surprised by a solid script with believably complex psychology and character motivations, wonderfully understated performances by a cast of relative unknowns, and I was completely disarmed for the grand-guignol finish which catapulted this undeservedly forgotten film into the realm of quintessential horror. Oh, and Linnea Quigley has a scream queen cameo as Milly the babysitter the same year she is killed by Santa whilst unforgettably “babysitting” on a pool table! So read on, Terror-fiends…
lecture as the guest of honor and proceeds to keel over and die. His corpse is stolen from the mortuary by his adoring fans (a la “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things”) who want to give him one last hurrah as the centerpiece of their morbid shindig in his abandoned gothic mansion. Conrad promptly returns from beyond the pale and begins picking off the kiddies for their gross effrontery.Besides introducing the horror world to Jeffrey Combs (2 years before “Re-Animator”) and giving the wonderful Ferdy Mayne his best horror role since Polanski’s “Dance of the Vampires” (“The Fearless Vampire Killers”) in ’67, the film fell a bit flat with an amateurish script and pedestrian direction. So I hesitantly entered “The Black Room,” and boy am I glad I did! What I encountered was a searing psychological drama that dealt with the sexual insecurities of aging and monogamous familiarity, punctuated with marvelously restrained overtones of horror. I was pleasantly surprised by a solid script with believably complex psychology and character motivations, wonderfully understated performances by a cast of relative unknowns, and I was completely disarmed for the grand-guignol finish which catapulted this undeservedly forgotten film into the realm of quintessential horror. Oh, and Linnea Quigley has a scream queen cameo as Milly the babysitter the same year she is killed by Santa whilst unforgettably “babysitting” on a pool table! So read on, Terror-fiends…
Larry and his wife Robin are having a bitch of a time gettin’ their fuck on, what with two needy twerps in the house, so out of insanity-inducing sexual frustration Larry starts looking for a private room to rent for some cathartic intercourse with anyone who’ll have him. He finds an ad for an “exotic room to let, live out your wildest fantasies here,” so, being the red-blooded American sonuvabitch he is, Larry (Jimmy Stathis) travels to the Hollywood Hills to check the place out. The audience knows there is something fishy with the landlords after the film’s intro, which showcases a double murder and the subsequent blood-draining of the previous tenant and his female lover. Larry takes the room, which is painted black, perpetually candlelit, and features a nifty luminescent coffee table, and starts a series of one night stands, each more fetishistic than the last. The eccentric and perniciously anemic landlord Jason (charmingly underplayed by Stephen Knight) photographs each of these liaisons through a two-way mirror (unbeknownst to Larry) while his sister Bridget keeps Jason alive with at-home blood transfusions culled from Larry’s dismissed conquests. All the while Larry regales his incredulous wife Robin with tales of his wild encounters, which she thinks are fantasies, until she discovers the house address and room key. Feeling duly hurt and betrayed, Robin (Clara Perryman) goes to the black room and, at the behest of Jason, witnesses one of Larry’s sordid encounters. Physically sickened, emotionally destroyed and vowing revenge, Robin begins acting out her own series of dalliances in the black room until she feels liberated enough to let Larry in on what she has been up to. Seeing their happy domesticity dissolving before their eyes, the couple end up back at the black room one last time, together and looking to repair the rift while pledging to end their extra-maritals. But Jason and his sister Bridget (Cassandra Gava) need that fresh blood supply to keep rolling through their doors, so they kidnap the couple’s children and lock the pair up as living blood banks. A wild finish has Larry and Robin overpowering the sanguinary siblings and dispatching them in a blood-soaked reprisal, but that is just the beginning of the true horror for the traumatized family.
, and starts a series of one night stands, each more fetishistic than the last. The eccentric and perniciously anemic landlord Jason (charmingly underplayed by Stephen Knight) photographs each of these liaisons through a two-way mirror (unbeknownst to Larry) while his sister Bridget keeps Jason alive with at-home blood transfusions culled from Larry’s dismissed conquests. All the while Larry regales his incredulous wife Robin with tales of his wild encounters, which she thinks are fantasies, until she discovers the house address and room key. Feeling duly hurt and betrayed, Robin (Clara Perryman) goes to the black room and, at the behest of Jason, witnesses one of Larry’s sordid encounters. Physically sickened, emotionally destroyed and vowing revenge, Robin begins acting out her own series of dalliances in the black room until she feels liberated enough to let Larry in on what she has been up to. Seeing their happy domesticity dissolving before their eyes, the couple end up back at the black room one last time, together and looking to repair the rift while pledging to end their extra-maritals. But Jason and his sister Bridget (Cassandra Gava) need that fresh blood supply to keep rolling through their doors, so they kidnap the couple’s children and lock the pair up as living blood banks. A wild finish has Larry and Robin overpowering the sanguinary siblings and dispatching them in a blood-soaked reprisal, but that is just the beginning of the true horror for the traumatized family.
I don’t want to ruin the glorious denouement any more than is absolutely necessary, so I suggest you research no more into the film than you already have by reading the above. I encourage you to enter “The Black Room” and experience this one for yourselves, without jaded expectations. Know that you will get a well-executed dramatic thriller until Pandora’s Box is literally ripped from its hinges for 10 glorious minutes at the finale. Happy hunting, Terror-fiends!
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