The Oak Room

We all have great memories of the cult series The Twilight Zone because each story was based on a great script and totally captured our attention. In the same way, the sketch films succeeded in perpetuating this tradition by telling us short stories that were as fascinating as they were disturbing. Examples include Creepshow (1983), Tales from the Darkside (1990), Body Bags (1993). The Oak Room continues this tradition of sketch films, but it blurs the lines by virtually placing the stories in a unique setting, a small-town Canadian bar.

Director Cody Calahan's new film (Antisocial 1&2 (2013-2015), Let Her Out (2016)) captures our attention from the foreground and is based on powerful dialogue between a bartender and a patron. The script, brilliantly written by Peter Genoway, is an adaptation of the play he had previously written. The Oak Room is more than just a sketch film as it interweaves the two main plots and characters to give viewers clues about what is really going on in the bar of the main character Paul (Peter Outerbridge) and in which a patron, Steve (RJ Mitte) comes to tell a story about another bar called the Oak Room.

Despite the fact that the majority of the film is set in a bar, the director never forgets that cinema should not be static and thus relies on an inventive direction that gives the film a certain inertia. Far from being the well-known joke of a man walking into a bar, The Oak Room prefers to delve into the psychology of the characters and the sharp dialogue.

While Hollywood cinema tends to focus on the demonstrative by relying on spectacular action scenes, striking special effects or love stories seen and reviewed, The Oak Room pays homage to a more intimate cinema that will remind some people of the cinema of Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez (Desperado (1995)). In the same way, director Cody Calahan abandons horrific cinema to offer us a disturbing and immersive thriller that will leave no one indifferent.

The oak Room
Directed by Cody Calahan
Produced by Chad Archibald, Cody Calahan, Jeff Maher, Ari Millen
Written by Peter Genoway
Starring Coal Campbell, Nicholas Campbell, Amos Crawley, Avery Esteves, David Ferry, Ari Millen, RJ Mitte, Peter Outerbridge, Martin Roach
Music by Steph Copeland
Cinematography: Jeff Maher
Edited by Mike Gallant
Release date: August 24, 2020 (Canada)
Running time: 89mns

Viewed August 19, 2020 (screener press)

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