The Red Room: Netflix, Horror, and War Crimes Subscribers

All it takes is a title: The Red Room . To evoke Netflix, we imagine entertainment. Except that here, there's no fiction: it's the rawest reality. That of a private paramilitary group, Wagner, whose violence has crossed all lines. This Russian-Soviet documentary repackaged on the platform is a chilling witness to an industrious war system, orchestrated and filmed behind closed doors, without embellishment. A dizzying dive, which disturbs and makes us think. Who still cares about these images? Was it necessary to make this public, or is it better for these horrors to remain off-screen? From the first minutes, we understand: Netflix has just opened a window into a red room of horror.

A moralizing Netflix or an accomplice in unhealthy voyeurism?

From the very beginning, the camera focuses on unfamiliar, silent faces. Behind them, the brown-green uniforms, the inscription "Wagner." Once the visual shock has passed, the intellect awakens: what about Netflix's responsibility? On the one hand, the platform assumes its role as scout, an investigator bringing to light massive atrocities. On the other, it raises the ethical question: why broadcast such raw scenes, without filters?
The viewer becomes a voyeur, an unwilling witness, as the documentary explores the inhumanity of private warfare. There's something unhealthy about watching, fascinated by so much cruelty. Is Netflix capitalizing on sensationalism or contributing to awareness? The answer seems ambiguous.

The mechanics of crime: an organized system

The Red Room doesn't just expose raw violence. It reveals the logistics of war crimes, its systemic organization. Men from the margins of Russian society are conscripted, drugged, armed, and sent to jails in Syria, Libya, and Ukraine.
We see human chains, questions asked throughout: where does the money go? Who finances it? Who approves these kidnappings, these tortures?
In an uncompromising narrative, the investigation dissects this private war enterprise: identification of locations, clandestine interviews, internal documents. Each corpse-like shot becomes a piece of a chilling puzzle, capable of shattering official narratives that deny everything.
We understand that Wagner is not an isolated gang, but a flexible link in the chaos orchestrated by puppet states.

Moral dilemma: broadcast to fight or poison minds?

Making these images known? Yes, but at what cost? The documentary has already shocked audiences: scenes of rape, executions, irrefutable visual evidence. Refusing to show them is to allow impunity to flourish in the shadows. But to confront them in the light is to risk trauma, fascination, and worse, moral stupefaction through unfiltered repetition.
Netflix seems to be playing the role of public prosecutor, while the viewer takes on the role of jury and helpless voyeur. The result: The Red Room creates a constant sense of unease. And it poses a crucial question: is absolute truth always a good thing?

A documentary that disturbs and divides

The tone is sharp. The Red Room arouses both revolt and unease. On the eve of elections, in an era of instant and saturated information, the documentary throws a spanner in the works: how far will the audiovisual industry go to make us "witnesses"?
The tone is divisive: a tribute to the quest for truth or an unhealthy testimony bordering on exploitation?
One thing is certain: the Red Room leaves no one indifferent. It poses a simple but terrible question: do we still believe in humanity, or have we never been so close to the abyss?