With the season of fright officially underway, it’s time for audiences everywhere to discover new ways of feeling scared. Dedicated horror fans and Halloween enthusiasts might check out classics like John Carpenter’s Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street. At the same time, Tim Burton lovers can once again resume the debate over whether The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Halloween movie, a Christmas movie, or both. But if you’re looking for a unique form of adolescent horror, you should check out one of Netflix’s most underrated and horrifying shows, Red Rose.
Produced by the same team behind Netflix’s Sex Education, Eleven Productions, the 2023 miniseries puts a sinister twist on its sister show’s colorful aesthetic by showcasing the dark side of growing up in the modern world. Across its eight episodes, audiences can expect plenty of familiar tropes from the streamer’s scariest shows, as Red Rose delivers all the heart-pounding scares, unsettling visuals, and bloody content October is known for. Moreover, with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score and a lack of broad coverage, the miniseries is officially one of Netflix’s hidden and most horrifying gems, making Red Rose a great addition to anyone’s spooky viewing schedule.
What Is ‘Red Rose’ About?
Set near the city of Manchester in England, the miniseries follows a group of recent high school graduates whose future plans are interrupted when their friend, Rochelle (Isis Hainsworth), downloads an app called Red Rose. At first, the program resembles spam more than something dangerous, beginning as a random text message sent to potential users from a phone number similar to one in their contacts, but unlucky characters who click the link soon find their lives controlled by the program’s insidious functions. When the app takes over Rochelle’s life and eventually results in her suicide, her best friend, Wren (Amelia Clarkson), downloads Red Rose as well, refusing to believe Rochelle would hurt herself and resolving to get to the bottom of the mysterious app.
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This resolve leads Wren to undergo the same rituals that Red Rose inflicted on Rochelle, resulting in an eerie series of trials that quickly escalate into the same kind of all-out terror that can be found in the world’s most recent horror movies. At first, Red Rose flatters its victims, using filters to show users an enhanced reflection of themselves and treating them to expensive gifts. Rochelle, for instance, receives a glittery dress when she first obeys the system’s wishes by jotting her innermost desires onto her bedroom mirror, but it doesn’t take long for the app to abuse its user’s newfound trust in the system. After Rochelle’s death, Red Rose taunts Wren with her deceased friend’s digital profile, demonstrating just how quickly everyday devices can be turned into instruments of horror.
‘Red Rose’ Depicts the Horrifying Possibilities of Technology in the Digital Era
As Wren and her friends continue investigating the circumstances of Rochelle’s death, Red Rose’s exploitation of its digital domain only worsens, and it’s through this technological brand of suspense that Red Rose produces its own unique horror. Throughout the self-proclaimed Dickheads’ attempts to retrace Rochelle’s online footsteps, members of the group are subjected to various torments, with Wren in particular almost killed by her stepfather, Simon (Rob Hallett), after Red Rose plants child abuse onto his laptop to blackmail him. Wren’s remaining friends are subsequently stalked both digitally and in person, and the ever-practical Ashley (Natalie Blair) is even hospitalized after Red Rose uses her location to push her off a cliff.
As a result, what makes Red Rose feel so scary is the ever-present power of its digital antagonist, a villainous organization whose lofty, poetic persona is grounded in a familiar apparatus. Unlike other horrifying shows which depict the potential dangers of modern technology, such as Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, Red Rose never veers into the speculative, instead opting to torture its characters through methods which feel startlingly realistic. Between the app’s use of editing software to digitally haunt Rochelle with audio and video of her deceased mother and Red Rose’s ability to seemingly access cameras anywhere, the miniseries is at its most creative when uncovering just how much horrifying potential exists in present-day devices.
‘Red Rose’ Represents the Social Terror of Being a Modern Teenager
Red Rose’s manipulation of modern technology to torture its main characters isn’t used solely for sadistic traps, however, as early episodes in the miniseries also showcase how the villainous app can take advantage of social media to isolate its victims. After receiving the dress she needed to attend a party, Red Rose blackmails Rochelle into kissing Wren’s boyfriend, Noah (Harry Redding), and uploads fake posts about the incident in the aftermath. Likewise, after Rochelle’s death, the app again accesses the functions of Wren’s phone to upload posts that make her look insensitive, effectively turning her into her hometown’s pariah and illustrating how technology can exacerbate the dark side of teenage relationships.
Red Rose’s capacity for interfering with the normal teenage experience is demonstrated further as the series progresses. During Episode 3, for instance, one of the sweetest members of the Dickheads, Anthony (Ellis Howard), finds himself haunted by a potential digital stalker while navigating a gay dating app in a relatable moment of underrepresented LGBTQ+ terror in a Netflix series. Later, after the group enlists the help of hacker Jaya (Ashna Rabheru), the Dickheads uncover the truth behind Red Rose’s origins and the story of the app’s founder, Adam Taylor (Charlie Hiscock). A high school student desperately obsessed with his classmate, Taylor’s tragedy is one you’ll have to witness for yourself to understand Red Rose’s main themes, but it’s safe to say this boy never heard of personal boundaries.
Thankfully, the miniseries really kicks into gear when the Dickheads do battle against Red Rose’s current leader, the mysterious online entity known only as The Gardener, and the episodes leading up to the show’s final confrontation should more than satisfy fans of the horror genre. While the miniseries’ realistic premise does at times restrict its fear factor, forcing Red Rose to rely on indirect methods of terror in its early episodes that don’t always hit as hard as they could, the show’s ending still delivers on the violence of its rhetoric. Moreover, by balancing its thrills with a story that raises awareness about the ongoing struggle against online abuse in the world today, Red Rose uses its digital drama to tell an important and terrifying story that’s sure to be a spooky treat for anyone this Halloween season.
Red Rose
- Release Date
- February 15, 2023
- Cast
- Amelia Clarkson , Natalie Blair , Ali Khan , Ashna Rabheru
- Main Genre
- Drama
- Seasons
- 1
Red Rose is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
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