Day 23: Occupant

This "haunted" apartment slow-burn, could have been so much better!

This movie really had potential, but somewhere down the line of the "days" it counts, it just kind of goes off the rails and the conclusion is unsatisfying to say the least.  There are shades of classic films like Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant all throughout this...even Apt 1408 and The Shining at times...but it's just a pale comparison to any of them.  And it's a shame, because for the most part it's beautifully shot, decently acted, and fairly engaging.  It just doesn't go anywhere.  Where to begin...

We start off with an old woman in a bed in her dying throes.  We don't know why she is dying, but we assume because it's a horror movie, that it's a ghost, demon, something...right.  Ok, now the premise for this is pretty solid actually.  The idea is that her grandson Danny (Van Hansis) can move into her "renter" apartment for the same price she paid for it (which is cheap for the area I guess...I don't know).  The doorman Joe (Thorsten Kaye) seems awfully friendly though...very touchy-feely and he wants to take care of Danny.  So he hooks Danny up with a lawyer and they are going to swindle the landlord by saying the Danny has lived there with his grandma before she died.  If he can stay in the house for 12 days, the house is his...or says the doorman and the lawyer anyway.  

On the way to his first visit to the apartment he runs in a self described "web blogger" (Cody Horn), who soon enough is visiting his place and videotaping them having sex.  And then she kind of gets up and wanders around and "something" happens to her.  And there are creaking noises and that hole in the closet door that just likes to re-open...and the cat doesn't like the place at all.  And wierd jewelry and shoes keep appearing where they were disappearing, and the pesticide guy dies in the apartment..and.  Well the movie takes place over the 12 days, and we see Danny getting more unhinged the more the days pass.  The question is, is it because he is being forced to stay in the house and is developing cabin fever?  Or is there something in the apartment that is making him crazy.  And more importantly, can he keep his sanity for the next 12 days.  I mean the wierd black guy come in and drops a Bible with it open to a verse about "demons" being in his presence.  So what is really going on here?

Ok, I liked Danny's character and most of the supporting cast (very small cast) is not bad in this.  I have also said that I like the way it's shot, but that's only half correct.  Towards the end, they go for some wierd techno music and sped up editing which totally clashes with the more calm focused shots of the start of the movie.  This is where it began to lose me.  It's like, "hey look i'm all indie, if you have any doubt i'm going to throw alt rock at you and speed up the camera"...it just wasn't needed.  There is one murder in this film that I have to say was very kind of inventive, but at the same time, so incredibly pedestrian...but the visual was striking.  The audio is fine, with us hearing the sounds of "demons" in the apartment I guess.  It's just that some of the things that Danny does towards the end of this, make no sense.  And maybe that is the reason he does them, but as a viewer I really felt cheated.  The payoff is really insulting, and there is really no sense of closure.  And with a movie like this, it really needed something like a Rosemary's Baby ending...because what we are left with is zero motivation or explanation as to why any of it occurred.

As such, even though I thought some of the characters were engaging...the script is just a mess and unravels towards the end.  Also, at times it seems that Danny is perfectly ok, but then the transition to the way he acts the next day is just jarring and not very realistic.  The actor is doing ok, I think this is a problem with the pacing and it should have been drawn out a few more days.  So, while I would not say this is a terrible film by any means, some artistic decisions and a vague ending really hurt the overall production.

6 out of 10