The Legend of Red Room

Sometimes an underground film becomes legendary becomes it avalanches into something more.

During Insano Steve and myself's heyday of looking for the most fucked up films to watch, we'd have to make contact with horror traders to get our fix. I documented this in a post about Horror Trading circa 2002. It was a weird time and the standard protocol was this:

• You'd dub a movie on VHS in SP mode and make sure to tell your trading counterpart the quality (1st generation dub, 2nd, 3rd, etc)
• You'd trade lists and each person would choose what they wanted (this would entail 1 for 1's, 2 for 2's and sometimes 5 for 5's)
• Send it out as quickly as possible

Of course there were bad traders that burned you (you'd send them stuff but they wouldn't or take their sweet fuckin time to send the tapes to you), but your reputation grew on news groups and message boards if you were a prolific trader. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED was a term you wanted.

But this brings us to how we got two Japanese films called Red Room and Red Room 2. After searching for this movie at horror conventions, we met up up with a one GoreMaggot (a legendary trader) at Chiller. After getting his trading list, many trades were initiated. But I believe Insano Steve initiated a trade for the Red Room double.

Trade for a fucked up Japanese film we've never heard of? Yes we want that! The fact we traded for a movie with no subs and was only in Japanese made it exciting.

Here was my original review from my trading list:

you want underground mofo? this is it. straight from the motherland of sick shit...Japan. holy depravity batman! let's start off by saying this flick had no english subs, no dubbed version...just straight Japanese language. so this negates what i know of the real plot. the movie starts off with an extreme closeup of 2 women french kissing while a guy watches and you know what. anyway 4 people (3 girls and a guy) are trapped in a "red room" and seemingly are talking, arguing and playing a card game. the game consists of 4 cards 3 of which are numbered 1,2, and 3 and the 4th has a crown on it. they each pick a card. the person who selects the crown card gets to order 2 participants to do very sexual and depraved shit to each other. this is where we enter guinea pig territory.

***SPOILERS AHEAD!!!***

a woman is twirled on a chair until she blows chunks, a man has a hair dryer inserted into his mouth and hot air blows into his brain, the man inserts a screwdriver and bulb into a woman's ummm...well you know. guy beats the crap out of a woman and then rapes her. mr. wang gets separated from mr. rapist guy. and more fucked up shit then imaginably possible.

downright disturbing. totally fucked up. sicko perverted atrocities. the insanity of a movie with no morals. lowest common denominator appeal. underground, bootleg, cancerous disgusting. this is it. guinea pig is still the pinnacle but red room has its moments.

This was one of the movies that had THIS company send me a cease and desist e-mail! After I got this movie I had added it to my horror trading list which led to some bullshit copyright crap. In any case, the legend of Red Room was born.

A ridiculous Japanese gore movie, a horror trade, watching a movie without subs and a cease and desist letter. That is the Legend of Red Room.

Intrigued by this movie? Well here is the trailer and now you'll know why we had to see it!





Isn't that just uber fucked up?

5 websites that inspired the jaded viewer

I started the jaded viewer in 2006. But really Insano Steve and I kind of started searching for underground horror back in 2002 or so. The internet had just started bursting with horror websites and we were Yahoo-ing sites (yes Yahoo was the big search engine back then) for some movies that could totally blow us away (via shock value and pure gore and splatter).

There were barely any horror blogs back then but there were plenty of websites that were devoted to horror with an emphasis on hard to find films. Most people created their websites on Angelfire or Geocities (both are now defunct). Some horror fans created their own websites from scratch (domain name and page layout). You just had to search real hard to find these sites.

Of course back then horror trading was rampant as Napster downloading. So most horror fans could be found in horror forums and Google newsgroups. This is where I spent most of my days talking about horror.

So when I decided to make my own site, I drew inspiration from those early websites that introduced me to so many of those fucked up movies I now share with you. So here are just a few of the websites that led to the creation of what is now the jaded viewer.

Thanks to the Internet Wayback Machine Archive, you can see them as they were circa early 2000s. These guys were the true pioneers of what we now call the horror blogosphere. Without these guys, my site and probably others wouldn't exist.

1.) Aylmer's Grisly Grimey Page of Unspeakable Horror

I wrote reviews for Aylmer's Grisley Grimey Page of Unspeakable Horror. The 2 reviews on here are Darkness and Luther the Geek. It had lots of guest reviews (people would submit reviews and they would be posted up) and had a wide collection of movies that I never even heard of. Good stuff, good reviews. A "Who's Who" feature was very educational for noobs like myself back then.

2.) Losman's Lair of Horror

Easily the most influential horror website I ever came across during the early days of my horror education. Insano Steve made it our mission to see every movie on his list (and we actually accomplished this with some tales to tell). His Disturbing Movies and Truly Great Horror were the definitive list of what I needed to see. And he introduced Insano Steve and I to cannibal movies. 100% good stuff here.

3.) Vidjunkie

From 1995 to 2005, this site blurb reviewed some great titles. From Euro to Asian cinema, the massive movie database here was unbelievable. Introductions to Fulci, Naschy, Bava, Argento and countless others were pivotal in my cult movie schooling. The reviews are hilarious as well.

4.) Kung Fu Cult Cinema

If there was one site I had to go to know what's the what in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai movies, I went here. They knew their stuff inside and out and their reviews were must reads. Without KFC Cinema, I would have not seen the j-horror originals that inspired their American counterparts. The site had a massive following and their forums were pretty solid too.

5.) Luminous Film and Video Works

It's the only site that still exists from the 5 websites on this list. It was an Amazon site for hard to find sleaze titles. Checking back here weekly, I would know what was coming to DVD. The first of its kind to sell some underground shit.

Honorable Mentions (most of these sites are alive and well) : Teleport City, HK Flix, BadMovies.org, Midnight Eye, Mobius Home Video Forum, Monsters at Play, Maggot Video.

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I wish some of these sites were still around. They would have enjoyed where the horror community has taken itself since the inception of the web. Thanks to these sites, the jaded viewer exists and is part of a very awesome horror blogosphere.

So what sites influenced your blog or site? (if you say the jaded viewer, thanks!! :-P) Everybody has an origin story for their little corner of the web. What's yours?

Quick Spinkick Reviews (from the jaded viewer archives)

I've got a back log of old reviews I've never posted, so I figure I'd post a few today and throughout the week. Most of these reviews are from Insano Steve and myself and from our old trading list circa 2002.

These were quick hit reviews, nothing fancy schmancy. No WTF moments or nudipedias. Just quick plot glimpses and funny randomness.

Enjoy!