One of the most stressful things you can ever do is moving house. It doesn’t matter if your new place is rented, furnished, bought, needs work done to it, it will always be stressful. Even when you’re moved in, everything is in its place, there’s the neighbours to meet, the neighbourhood to explore, everything is new and takes getting used to. ‘Apartment 1BR’ takes this feeling to a whole new level.
Having just moved to a new city to start afresh, take a
course and work on her costume designs, Sarah moves into her new apartment with
a tight knit, yet welcoming community of neighbours. At first, everything is
going well for Sarah but she just can’t get a decent night’s sleep. This
impacts her work, her attitude, she distances herself from her family and even
turns down a dinner party with her new neighbours. But there is something even
more sinister going on behind closed doors, something that she is about to be a
part of, whether she likes or not.
SPOILERS
From the outset there is something off putting about the neighbours and the apartment. Its literally too good to be true but the catch doesn’t come until later. Setting itself up to be story about a haunting or possession of some kind, particularly with the weird noises that only seem to affect Sarah’s apartment, the film twists this expectation on its head to something unusual, despite the obvious signs when you think back or go in for a second viewing.
The story slips back into the horror thriller genre very comfortably
between the torture ‘treatment’ scenes and the realisation that this is what
everyone went through when they moved into the building. The initiation process
is the most gruelling, with every step she takes deeper into the group’s beliefs.
But the truly horrific moments are when she watches and lets her old friend go through
everything she did, all seen on monitors which are placed around the entire
building. Of course, the spine-chilling moments are taken up a notch when a set
of cameras are seen in the CCTV room and the question of who is watching them
watch everyone else doesn’t pay off until the very end. It’s a very clever and
subtle moment of realisation for Sarah and it’s just an image that speaks
volumes.
Sarah is a prime target for a radical delusional group,
complete with a book written by a ‘great man’ years before, is reminiscent of
other films abouts cults and even real ones, why is there always a book involved
with cults? ‘Apartment 1BR’ bears a strong resemblance to ‘The Invitation’,
another film about a cult, both are subtle and restrained, creating an uneasy sense
of dread. Although, ‘Apartment 1BR’ has the advantage of tricking the viewer
they are about to watch a completely different film.
As a production plagued by disasters, the film comes out unscathed. Resisting the trend of other films of the same genre, the story and characters really explore the fact that real horror is other people no matter where you find yourself.