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.

Movie Review: APARTMENT 143 (2011)

With the success of the Paranormal Activity franchise and such films as The Devil Inside (2012) and The Last Exorcism (2010) the found footage or documentary style film has become very popular not only with big budget Hollywood films but with the low budget indie horror films as well which is where Apartment 143 (2011) fits.

The film concerns a parapsychologist team who are asked to investigate what seems to be a genuine haunted house in the White family residence of apartment number 143.  The White family has just experienced the tragedy of losing their matriarch and now the father Alan (Kal Lennox) must contend with the possibility that the house he just moved his family into might be haunted.  Unlike more subtle films of this nature very little time is spent building up to whether or not the house is haunted because this is made clear almost immediately upon the parapsychology team first entering the apartment.  The rest of the film is spent finding the reason why and how to stop it if they can.

One of the elements in this film that I do not believe add to the believability of the film is the fact that the team sets up cameras everywhere as if they have an unending supply of cameras and that all the action can be seen from any and all angels.  I believe that this was a mistake.  The reason why the Paranormal Activity franchise works so well is because very few cameras are used and the suspense is created from what the audience cannot see that is right out of the eyesight of the cameras.  In Apartment 143 the audience sees everything so there is very little suspense.  Instead, the film tries to overuse the haunted house angle by having something crazy happen every ten minutes.  Some of these “haunting” moments are convincing while others are not.

As directed by Carles Torrens the film is not that bad (he does have lots of camera angles to choose from) and is one of the better low budget films of this ilk but even at 80 minutes the film drags a little but this is more because of the lack of a suitable setup for the parapsychology team than anything else.