Under the deliberate manipulation of the director, "Shadow Room" is full of shadows of other supernatural thrillers, and even a tribute to black and white classic horror films, especially the title part is the most obvious: when the title of the movie appears, it is supplemented by A screeching sound; a black-and-white image of the exterior and interior of an old Victorian house, as if time traveled back in time. Under this premise, don't try to find new ideas from the scary scenes in the movie, such as: haunted houses, falling objects, doors closing by themselves, sudden loud noises, ghost possession, strange noises from machines, etc. These are elements that frequently appear in the same type of movies.
But what interests me most is the difference in attitudes between men and women when confronted with paranormal events. Strictly speaking, there are supernatural phenomena encountered in "The Nerd's Room" - from the falling book, the strange sound from the baby monitor, the music with the tune of the record player leaking, to actually seeing the strangely dressed "person" in the room. Renai (Rose Byrne) appears and walks around the house—over and over again, forcing Renai to cry out to her husband Josh (Patrick Wilson) for help, but perhaps Josh never has. With these experiences, he was always dubious about his wife's words, and even showed a look of ridicule and disdain. Such an arrangement reminds me of "Smart: Ghost Record" (Paranormal Activity, 2007). Judging from his occupation and his fascination with digital products, it is not difficult to understand that the male protagonist in the film is a personality that seeks truth from facts, tries to find out results for unexplainable phenomena in a scientific way, and shows his sympathy to the experts whom the female protagonist brings to help. Unfriendly attitude, it's like Josh in "The Nerd's Room".
Under the gender dichotomy, men always represent rationality, science, objectivity, etc., while women are symbols of perceptual, non-scientific, subjective, etc., such stereotyped and oversimplified differences are reflected in "The Nerd's Room" among. When Renai listened carefully to the explanation of the psychic medium Elise (Lin Shaye), sometimes he was emotionally tense, sometimes sad and weeping, Josh just sat on the sofa, withdrawing like a bystander, and even angrily rebuked the psychic Words and deeds, drive them out of the house. The completely different attitudes of the two can actually be seen from their occupations: Renai composes and composes music for the piano at home, and Josh works as a teacher at school. Although it is not obvious what subjects are taught, the two are compared , you can probably feel that Renai is the emotional side, and Josh is the rational side. However, the director does not seem to want to be overly simplistic in this dichotomy. This can be seen from the instruments used by the mediums. Even if the instrument that looks like a very gas mask seems funny, it can be seen that the director is trying to combine the supernatural and the scientific. Attempts to merge (sensual and rational).
In addition, the director has an ingenuity in the plot. The film begins with a picture of a young boy sleeping on the bed, followed by a sharp, uncomfortable soundtrack that moves slowly to an ugly, terrifying old woman (Philip Friedman) holding a lit candle. ; echoing this is the ending part, when the cast and crew list runs out, the old woman's face reappears on the screen, this time she blows out the candles. This arrangement, in my opinion, is not just for echoing from beginning to end. In fact, it also brings out the unsolved case that the director placed in the plot and left the audience puzzled: after all, Josh's body lives in his own soul. Or the soul of the old woman who haunted him as a child? I think that Josh's exorcism as a child was successful. If it fails, it means that since childhood, the old woman's soul was in Josh's body. In this way, in the passage of the soul out of the body to save the child, the It should be the soul of the old woman, not the soul of Josh. Moreover, in the family photo of Josh after getting married and having children, there is no shadow of the old woman. However, even so, I think the old woman has been following the side, waiting for an opportunity, until Josh tries to save his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) out of his body again, the old woman finally seized the opportunity and successfully invaded Josh's body. Therefore, when the psychic found out his true identity, the old woman, Josh angrily scolded her and strangled the psychic who was always against him.
Most chillingly, though, who is the film's narrator? Of course, the whole movie is played from the perspective of a third party, and there is no narrator's narration, but from the beginning and ending pictures mentioned in the previous paragraph, I would think that the narrator of this movie is the old narrator. woman. The film begins with a series of black-and-white images following the image of the old woman, which do not turn into color until the main content. It was as if the old woman was telling the audience a story from a long, long time ago. When the picture turned to color, the audience had followed the old woman into the time and space at that time. As for the ending part, the old woman blows out the candle, as if telling the audience: Okay, my story is over. In other words, "The Nymph" can be regarded as a ghost story told by a ghost at all: about how the old woman took great pains to occupy Josh's body.
The director's ingenuity can be seen everywhere in "The Nerd's Room", injecting freshness into the supernatural thriller that is always similar. In addition, it is not difficult for a more careful audience to discover the director's preference for toy dolls. For example, in a scene in the school classroom, on the blackboard behind Josh, he used chalk to draw the face of the doll that appeared in "The Reaper of Souls". ; in the devil's room, stuffed with all kinds of toy figures. For viewers who are familiar with the director's style, or who have seen "Reaper of Souls", seeing these elements unexpectedly appear, they will definitely not help but smile.
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