By: April Shire
Ah, the college years, time to finally leave the house, move in with friends, or into a dorm. For two lifelong friends, Kim White (Francesca Xuereb) and Izzy Davis (Viktoria Vinyarska) a too-good-to-be-true apartment becomes available. Kim jumps on the opportunity, despite her parent's disapproval of Izzy as her roommate. The pair move into the apartment, and strange incidents start to occur.
When the girls first move into the apartment, they are escorted by creepy landlord, Ronan (Scott Gremillian), who really sets the tone for what's going to happen in this apartment. Everything in the apartment is the same as it was over 50 years ago; furniture, fixtures, and a stained glass window. Ronan has some normal rules that you'd hear most landlords say; no loud music after nine, pay rent in cash, and stay out of the basement. Kim is college-bound, Izzy wants to be a famous actress, but is struggling with her mom's death by overdose. Izzy wants to party all the time, while Kim wants to focus more on school.
Izzy finds a necklace in a hole in Kim's bedroom wall, a hole that refuses to be covered. She starts wearing the necklace, and sleep walking. Kim, on the other hand, starts having odd dreams. While Kim is at school, she meets lan (Eric Wiegand), and begins to vent to him about the bizarre events that have been happening with Izzy and the strange apartment. Izzy's behavior starts to become more erratic, so Ian and Kim start investigating, hoping to help Izzy, and to find out what the history of room 203 is.
Has the strange apartment or room thing been done before? Yes, it has... a lot. It makes sense, because ghost stories and hauntings often seem to revolve around a home or room. Writers Ben Jagger (Corbin Nash), and John Poliquin (Selfie) did a great job of adapting this novel for the big screen. ROOM 203 had some great twists that I wasn't expecting, but the thing that really made this movie original was the history of the apartment. Xuereb and Vinyarska did a wonderful job portraying two best friends. Their friendship helped make the story all the more believable. I would recommend seeing this film in theaters, if possible, so you can feel the full effect of the jump scares, because there really are some good ones.
ROOM 203 will be available on VOD and in limited theaters on April 15th.