Film Review: APARTMENT 1303 (2012)

I was surprised to learn that the film Apartment 1303 (2012) was a film originally presented in 3D but I guess that it was in select theaters and markets in that format.  Unfortunately, the film isn’t worth seeing in 3D or in 2D. 

Janet Slate (Julianne Michelle) has secretly moved into an apartment without her overbearing and violent mother Maddie (Rebecca De Mornay) and her older sister Lara (Mischa Barton).  She not only wants to get away from her mother but she also wants to start living her own life away from the pressure of her singer mother.  As soon as Janet gets into her apartment something is not right as a little girl keeps warning her to leave and her landlord likes to make himself home in her place plus something keeps trying to spook Janet in her own home.  When Janet suddenly dies two days later from an apparent suicide by jumping off the balcony of her place, Lara decides to take residence in the apartment to discover the truth of what happened to her sister.  No one seems to believe Lara when she says that the apartment is haunted by a previous tenant who refuses to share the apartment but she must find a way to survive when the ghosts in the apartment is very violent and vengeful.

This might actually be an interesting film if not for the poor acting due to the poor script.  There is no logic to the actions of the vengeful ghosts especially when Janet’s ghosts decides to be vengeful towards her sister (never makes any sense).  Also, the way in which both Janet and Lara react to the ghosts in any given scene is inconsistent.  Sometimes they appear to be afraid of the ghosts while other times they just decide to ignore them.  This gets old really fast and is probably more of an editing problem since these are usually close up reaction shots on the character.  Another thing is that De Mornay is the best actor in the film and she has little to nothing to do in the film and never has a chance to interact with the ghosts (which is a shame).

The special FX actually do look as though they were made for a 3D film but look poor in 2D (kind of like the poor visual FX in JAWS 3-D when viewed in 2D).  Not a very good film in any way and is highly forgettable.