The Man in Room 6 (2022) - Horror Film Review

It was the weekend before last that I first went to watch The Man in Room 6. I admit it was upon starting the film and seeing it was two and a half hours long that led me to delaying the review for a week. This was written and directed by Trevor Juenger, a man whose name always stuck in my mind, as it was his 2014 arthouse horror Coyote that was my first introduction to Bill Oberst Jr. and his intense acting style. For that reason alone I was interested to see Juenger's latest horror, as Oberst Jr. plays a key role in the film. Despite its lengthy run time, The Man in Room 6 resolutely failed to be dull, and while I can't profess to understanding the story all that well, it was something that captured my attention.

The film begins on a train, with Carrie (Jackie Kelly - Tennessee Gothic) on the run, for reasons unknown. A strange man (David Wassilak - Coyote) appears, who says he has been instructed by Carrie's mother  to bring the girl back, and to do so he ends up drugging the woman. In her earlier life she had inadvertently struck up a friendship with an elderly man at a nursing home. This man, William (Oberst Jr. - DIS, Coyote, Resolution) tells the girl a series of bizarre stories about his life, which include accounts of meeting a mermaid, black magic, and of a curse that means he can never die. It seems that at some point something occurred with William that resulted in Carrie being sent to a juvenile detention/psychiatric centre. Whatever happened with William has left a mark on her, as she claims to still see him wherever she goes.

It is hard to talk about the story for Room 6 as it is deeply layered. With the way it plays out it almost felt like an anthology at times, and are shown a variety of stories from different time periods, from the 1940's, to the 1980's and all the way up to near present day. The plot can be very confusing, with it feeling like key elements are purposely left vague to the viewer. This can also be seen with what happens, such as things that occur in the future that then seem to feed back and affect the past. With William's fate being such an important part of Carrie's story I thought it was interesting that this isn't actually shown, instead it is just what Carrie later relates to a friend. It became hard to follow events, and sometimes it didn't feel that well joined up even if later on things become more clearer. The first fifty minutes is mainly concerned with the stories of William. Oberst Jr. is in full facial prosthetics to imitate an old man, with the flashbacks (obviously) featuring him as he really looks. There were two different stories shown with him, both of which worked well as short horrors. In one, adrift at sea he encounters a beautiful and strange mermaid, this has a fairytale type feel to it, and despite what must be an indie film, it seemed authentic. Maybe her fish costume wasn't the most realistic looking, yet the story was told well on screen. The second of his stories had him returning home from World War II to find his wife behaving very strangely. It seems that she may have begun practicing black magic while he was gone. Oberst Jr. was in The Man in Room 6 for far less time than I expected, but with such a long run time this still meant he still featured for nearly an hour of the movie.

This first part of this I had assumed would be the format of the whole film, but then we are taken back to the mid 1980's and introduced to a whole new cast of characters. Elizabeth (Blaire Winter - Black Easter) and her younger brother Avery (Dalton Littrell) live with their alcoholic father, Chuck (Steve Montana) in a house that is next to a graveyard. This graveyard is home to an incredibly creepy mortician (voiced by Peter Joseph Lewis - Infection). This felt like something else entirely separate, bringing with it a Tales From the Crypt vibe. It also had the most horror elements, with Avery repeatedly spying a figure who appears to be living within the walls. From here into the second half the plot of Room 6 becomes much harder to follow, but it also this last half where the various stories intertwining natures becomes made clear. I confess to feeling increasingly lost, but I just about held on to some semblance of story, even if I really didn't understand it.
Throughout there is a often wonderful film score. The music moments that go more for traditional horror sounds did on occasion feel a little bit generic, but the main theme was something else entirely, a haunting and slightly fairytale sound that helped unite the disparate elements.

The most impressive part of The Man in Room 6 was how it never once got dull despite the run time. There were so many different parts to this that it felt like it could have been chopped up into a series of smaller films, but as it was this was an experience that felt elevated above a traditional horror film. While I started to feel lost by the end, this remained bizarre and enthralling, something that deserves to be watched in one sitting, and one whose supernatural tinged story of life and death, of rebirth and sacrifice was forever captivating.

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