Opening Day: 6 September 2007

Synopsis:

When Sayaka leaps off the balcony to her death at her own housewarming party, all her friends are left in shock. Conviced that her sibling would not have committed suicide, Sayaka's elder sister, Mariko, takes it upon herself to investigate the reason behind the sinister death and soon
learns the history of Apartment 1303: Where a love-hate relationship between former tenants - a mother and daughter pair - has now turned into a tale of horror.


Summarize Review:

Formulaic and Repetitive till a point that it’s not scary anymore. Except for the Eye Candy Ladies that this film packed into the apartment, there isn’t really any reason to catch this movie at all. That is unless you can’t get enough for the standard Japanese horror flick’s scare tactics and convoluted storylines.

Movie Review:

Long hair ghostly lady that walks with a crooked body – Checked
Pretty young eye candy ladies – Checked
Supernatural investigation due to death in family - Checked
Convoluted plots that does not satisfy at the end – Checked
Vengeance based on Unhappy Childhood – Checked

The above scenarios sound awfully familiar right? It’s been used in most horror Asian movies (and some guilty Hollywood ones too) so often that it’s becoming numbing to the senses.

It was so deadening to the mind that my thoughts went wandering and came out with a good challenge! Since Apartment 1303 is made out from a standard Asian Horror mould, I wonder if I could find a review on such similar genre and premise so that I could basically plagiarize the whole review for this film. All I need to do is change a couple of names and maybe it could just fit.

And guess what? There’s one review in the Moviexclusive review vault that almost did the job.

Poltergeist activities in homes with cameos by longhaired waifs with sinister intentions drifting past the periphery of the eye while disappearing into the walls and reappearing at the nearest reflection on a mirror or window. The ever popular premise of a young protagonist (usually female) with a chequered past, along with a widowed (sometimes divorced) parent who is usually distracted by work obligations, that end up having to face these vengeful spirits against all odds. And that is basically what this film is all about.

A very shoddy plot papers over the holes that don’t explicate or leave any credible insinuations about the goings on. There’s an uninteresting mystery that holds together the film and the tenants with Mariko right in the middle of it all.

- The above bold paragraph extracted and edited from "The Haunted Apartments" Review -

To be fair to this movie and those who made this film, there are some variation between that movie and this but the gist of these two movies are essentially the same. How can it be scary when the viewer basically went down the same path, stairs or apartment so many times?

But then again, there can only be supply when there’s demand for it and by the frequent offering of movies with such caliber, there should be a faithful crowd that are into this type of movies and they probably don’t really care much of the fact that it had the same old scare tactics and plotlines.

So it really depends on you as a viewer. If the horror genre is getting too run-of- the-mill for you, avoid it. Otherwise, have your usual fix of the repetitive Japanese horror movies and disregard this review totally.

Anyway if you do get bored with the horror element or story in this movie, there are always plenty of Japanese ladies who served as candies for the eyes.

Movie Rating:

(Strictly for those who can’t get enough of the standard Japanese horror flicks)

Review by Richard Lim Jr