Michael Taverna’s Apartment 1303 looked promising, when I saw the trailer way back when. The movie itself, however, is really… really terrible. It seems to take elements from Japanese cinema (Ju-on, Dark Water, The Eye, Ringu, and Pulse), all of which have terrible American remakes.
Apartment 1303 feels like a remake of something that might have been good and to my knowledge is not. The acting is God awful with the exception of Rebecca De Mornay as a drunk, psychologically abusive mother. I’ve seen my fair share of really bad stuff, but this whole film is truly laughable.
Stylistically, it’s gorgeous with wonderful sound design and dark visual style. Production on Apartment is so good, it makes you wonder if the crew knew how bad the film they were making would turn out.
Janet has had enough of her drunk mother’s overbearing and violent ways and rents an apartment without hesitation. Soon after moving in, she begins seeing and hearing things in her apartment. When she mysteriously falls to her death, she leaves her family, boyfriend, and the police searching for answers.
I wish I had some more positive things to say about it, but the cold hard truth is that we’ve seen this all before and the sad thing is that we will surely see it again. This film has missed opportunities left and right that will leave most audiences bewildered. Despite its one poorly acted flirty romp, this film is better suited for 13-year-old girls having sleep overs.
I really can’t get over how let down I was by this one guys. Maybe it’s because I had some sort of expectations of non-suckery, but wow… that’s really all I have to say to sum it up. You should probably watch it yourselves to see if I’m just crazy, but whew, what a bad movie.
I’m gonna give it 1 bouncy ball out of 5.
