The Forbidden Room

Released Oct 7, 2015

2h 10m

Comedy

Drama

Mystery & Thriller

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List

96%

69 Reviews

Tomatometer

50%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

A submarine crew, which has been trapped underwater for months, encounters a strange woodsman. Though the vessel is doomed, the crew may be making its way towards the origins of its fears.

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Critics Consensus

The Forbidden Room may frustrate viewers looking for a linear experience, but those seeking a challenge -- or already familiar with director Guy Maddin's work -- will be rewarded.

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Audience Member

Complete waste of time. The critics rating this so high on the tomatometer are probably of the same caliber that see paint flung on a canvas by monkeys and extol the virtues and beauty in the randomness of the splatters. Really surprised at the critics on this one.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

01/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I wanted to love this and on one level, I really do. Guy Maddin's latest is a triumph of style over substance, perhaps his most eye-popping feature yet. The screen bubbles and melts and exudes raw colour in a variety of cinematic fashions (silent, old technicolor, sixties schlock, etc.). Things are typically outlandish, silly, and sometimes gruesome or sexy. The high concept here is that Maddin decided to recreate some lost films based on surviving descriptions or scripts alone, films that Maddin himself really wanted to see (but obviously could not). After all, he is also a film historian of sorts (with interesting pieces in Film Comment that I am half-remembering now). So, 4, 5, or 6 films have been sliced and diced and welded together to make a deranged feature film (apparently to secure funding that the shorts could not). The result is largely incoherent as a sum of parts but there are so many wild vibrant moments across the 2 hours - and thinking of this as an experimental film really helps matters. Probably though it is not for the uninitiated and there are other easier entry points to Maddin's oeuvre (My Winnipeg, 2007, is my favourite thus far, of those I have seen). But really, just wow.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/04/23

Full Review

Audience Member

It's often the case that experimental cinema is frustrating and boring. But Guy Maddin manages to be frenetic and self referential without losing the audience. Forbidden Room taps into the high melodrama of silent film in a way that is extremely entertaining, well paced, cogent, and often funny.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/21/23

Full Review

guillaume h

At the beginning and for a few minutes, the colour scheme is unnerving as is the disjointed and blurry editing, and the willfully theatrical acting, but then... you get drawn in to these strange worlds and it becomes real for the watcher. Its hard to explain. But it fails to engage all the way because its overstretched and the nesting dolls, by the three quarter mark, become random arrangements that doesnt fit into each others.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

With very few redeeming qualities, experimental film hero Guy Maddin's The Forbidden Room is an impenetrable and self-indulgent work that will really only appeal to those individuals who want to appear to be intelligent.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

01/29/23

Full Review

Audience Member

An avant-garde stream-of-consciousness, Freudian horror anthology that falls into the realm of "weird for weird's sake". This movie ends up being somewhere between bad Creepypastas (like "Squidward's Suicide") and a parody of avant-garde film itself. I would recommend any 5 minute excerpt to observe the style, but any longer is unbearable and borderline unintelligible

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/23/23

Full Review

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Guy Maddin

Director

Evan Johnson

Director

Roy Dupuis

Cesare

Clara Furey

Margot

Louis Negin

Marv

Udo Kier

Count Yugh

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The Forbidden Room: Trailer 1

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Tara Brady

Irish Times

There's a strange comfort in knowing that Freud's fascinating topography of the mind will never be completely discredited while Maddin is making deliriously absurd movies.

Rated: 4/5

Feb 23, 2016

Full Review

Sheri Linden

Los Angeles Times

What Maddin & Co. have invented here ranges from Freudian horror to childish naughtiness.

Feb 18, 2016

Full Review

Mark Kermode

Observer (UK)

The screen pulsates like infernal internal organs, or bubbles and mutates like melting celluloid jammed in a hot projector.

Rated: 3/5

Dec 13, 2015

Full Review

Jason Adams

The Film Experience

The outside world, like centenarian film-stock, dissolves in acid-hued pools right around you. Outside world? What outside world? We are all film down here.

Jan 14, 2022

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

Maddin's films are often classified as experimental, even though he's regurgitating vintage cinematic styles and melting them into his own particular stew, with his latest being a passionate, intoxicating frenzy.

Rated: 4/5

Oct 8, 2020

Full Review

Mattie Lucas

From the Front Row

Evokes a forgotten aesthetic that feels as if we have unearthed a buried treasure.

Rated: 3.5/4

Aug 7, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

A submarine crew, which has been trapped underwater for months, encounters a strange woodsman. Though the vessel is doomed, the crew may be making its way towards the origins of its fears.

Director: Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson
Producer: Jody Shapiro, Niv Fichman, David Christensen, François-Pierre Clavel
Screenwriter: Evan Johnson, Guy Maddin, Robert Kotyk
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Production Co: Buffalo Gal Pictures
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 7, 2015, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Dec 18, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $32.9K
Runtime: 2h 10m

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