Horror is all fun and games until it’s at your front door step. I can tell you I’ve watched countless movies that would scar someone for life and never even bat an eyelash. Desensitized, if you will. But catch me watching someone bleeding IRL, and I get weak at the knees. The reason for this, of course, is because horror movies aren’t real. A psychological study found that “the fictional nature of horror films affords viewers a sense of control by placing psychological distance 

between them and the violent acts they have witnessed.” (McCauley 1998) 

(https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-excess/201510/why-do-we-watching-scary-films). 

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This makes sense, right? When it’s fictional, all is right in the world. But what if what you were watching was actually real? The torture, the blood, the screaming, the whole nine? What if you could pay to watch someone tortured and killed and have a say in how they did it? Would you do it? Wait. Don’t answer that.  

Some say this actually exists in the deep web, calling it a “red room”. No, this is not the E.L. James FIFTY SHADES OF GREY “Red Room of Pain” I’m talking about. (Why do I even know about this? Don’t ask.) Eileen Ormsby, author of SILK ROAD, explains it as “…a live stream of the torture and murder of a person for the entertainment of others. Sometimes viewers may interact, typing instructions on a screen.” (https://allthingsvice.com/2015/08/29/waiting-in-the-red-room/)  

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Somewhat of an urban legend, red rooms are talked and speculated about, but never seen. I did some research on Tor, one of the few links to the underground Internet, and found sites for stolen credit cards, drugs, guns and ammunition, but alas no red rooms (Although those sites could be enough to scare you out of the deep web forever). I did stumble across a couple of posts on Reddit’s /r/deepweb where they talk about what they’ve seen in depth and found it incredibly chilling. However, no links are found to any of these sites. It is based purely on firsthand accounts. You can read those posts here. 

(https://www.reddit.com/r/deepweb/comments/2vryi8/my_visits_to_the_darkest_sites_on_the_de ep_web/)