The Parlor
The Parlor
| 06 October 2001 (USA)
The Parlor Trailers

A group of people are gathered in a room, which is a "live" depiction of a typical Internet chat room. Some pretends to be much younger than they are, to chat up minors. Two of them falls victim of their own scam in a surprising way.

Reviews
Scanialara You won't be disappointed!
Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!
Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Duzniak38 I think that this short is so enjoyable, that I had to show all of my friends and family, so that they could understand the awareness and problems it was giving us. It portrays the dangers of chat rooms (so hilariously.) It uses a waiting room to visualise the chat room; you've got all the characters in there, so you can see them for who they really are, and for who they are trying to disguise themselves as, for example blatant use of lying about age and gender (e.g. you've got a huge 40 year old bloke posing as a 13 year old girl named Beth) - not only did it show the dangers of talking about sexual things on chat room, it also shows the dangers of trust; could you really trust meeting someone from a chat room, when there is such common use of disguising ones self in the chat rooms? I think that once seeing this, you are more alert and suspicious about trusting people online; and this film may be a good way to make parents' children aware of the modern day danger of the Internet and its many chat rooms. The only thing I think that would have made this more interesting, is if they had put more focus on all of the characters. Granted that the main focus on 'slappysue' and 'skater' was needed for the twist; but I also feel that exploring the results of the conversations between the other characters would have put more insight into the point that this short was trying to make.
Guile` I wouldn't call it brilliant or genius, but The Parlor is certainly an amusing piece... and definitely worth a watch.** possible spoilers **I knew what it was about after about a minute or two, probably because I spend a fair amount of time online and know about the stereotypes that are associated with 'chat rooms', and it was rather realistic in that regard... Whether or not it's a true and accurate representation of chat rooms in general is a different story... Might be, might not be. Either way, it was witty and very well made. However, I do think I've seen a comic strip or something with the same theme in the past though, so it didn't strike me as overly brilliant or original. Thumbs up nonetheless.
LostRomantic23 I found this on a friend's profile on Instant Messenger, and at first had no idea what it was. Up until the last two minutes or so, I was very confused, but I'm glad I kept watching until the end ... upon finishing the clip, I came to IMDb to see exactly what it was: a short film, an excerpt from something, etc. I would love to see this more of this man's work; I'd REALLY like to see this piece go to Cannes or Sundance if it hasn't already -- I can see it winning an award. Definitely check it out.
Scarface-18 This is a funny satire of the whole chat room thing. An unflinching and painfully hilarious look at the secret lives of the most unsuspecting people. I'd like to see the writer/director of this short to break into feature film. This man is a genius.