When I first heard about All The Empty Rooms, I was initially hesitant to give the new Netflix original documentary a watch. I mean, I’ve watched countless school shooting documentaries over the years, including everything from Oscar winners like Bowling for Columbine to more recent docs like HBO’s Thoughts & Prayers. But still, something about going into the bedrooms of the deceased kids made me feel like I was invading someone’s privacy or something.
However, I decided to give it a watch, something I’m glad I did. Though I felt a little weird at times, Joshua Seftel’s documentary about a CBS News correspondent and acclaimed photographer exploring loss and grief featured an interview with a father that changed all of that. Allow me to explain…
All The Empty Rooms Is One Of The Toughest Documentaries I’ve Watched All Year
There have been so many emotional documentaries on the 2025 movie schedule, and I’ll put All the Empty Rooms near the top of that list. Despite being a little longer than 30 minutes, this exploration of the untouched bedrooms of multiple school shooting victims made me cry multiple times. From the stories of lives cut short at such a young age to interviews with parents talking about their sons and daughters who went to school one day and never came home, to the visible impact the venture had on CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp, it was just one gut punch after another.
Incredibly poignant, breathtaking, and sobering, the short doc took me down a path I wasn’t ready to explore, especially as I put myself in these grieving parents’ shoes. Heartbreaking isn’t a strong enough word to describe the experience.
Despite Feeling Like An Invasive Tourist At First, An Interview With A Grieving Father Put It All Into Perspective
For the first few minutes of All the Empty Rooms, I felt like a tourist who was invading or exploiting a tragedy. That all changed when Charles Scruggs, whose 9-year-old daughter was one of three children killed in the Nashville school shooting, opened up about why he and his wife kept their daughter’s room preserved like a memorial:
I think the room helps because there's a lot of moments where you want to be sad. Because the sadness is a part of connecting with her.
That comment, along with Scruggs talking about how he wanted nothing more than to be able to see, touch, and smell his daughter again, changed it all. I no longer felt like I was snooping around, but instead walking side-by-side with this grieving father as he tried to find a way to keep his daughter’s memory alive.
This was the case for all other parents interviewed throughout. Watching them all open up about their children’s lives, wishes, desires, and the moment that cut that all short was extremely hard to endure, but I feel like a better, more empathetic person having experienced that.
I cannot recommend All the Empty Rooms enough. If you have a Netflix subscription and want to better understand grief and our desire to preserve the memories of loved ones, this is a must.
