An Atmospheric and a Truly Haunting Example of Modern Horror

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MOVIE REVIEW
Room 203
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Genre: Horror
Year Released: 2022
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director(s): Ben Jagger
Writer(s): Ben Jagger, Nanami Kamon (novel), John Poliquin
Cast: Francesca Xuereb, Viktoria Vinyarska, Eric Wiegand
Where To Watch: Debuts on VOD and in Limited Theaters on April 15th

While this isn’t strictly a two-person cast, most of the film focuses primarily on Francesca Xuereb (Kim White) and Viktoria Vinyarska (Izzy Davis.) It’s an exciting story about a “curse,” which made for a great watch thanks to Xuereb’s incredible acting. Vinyarska played a great opposite; the two made such an interesting connection on screen. Then the introduction of Eric Wiegand (Ian) as a foil to not the characters but the entire situation. With a level approach to try and explain things away that otherwise would seem unthinkable.

The film was adapted from the Nanami Kamon Japanese novel. It can show the disconnect between the standard horror fare that we’re used to and something like this, which is much more cerebral. While there are traditional “horror” moments in the film, we’re left to connect the dots on our own regularly, which I think adds to the experience.

What makes the film even more unique is that one of the most significant points within has to do with guilt, trauma, and repairing the past. The friend's journey is made increasingly difficult because it’s not just a simple ghost story, each character has their own issues that they’re trying to compensate for and learn from as the film goes on. Director Ben Jagger was quoted as saying, “When I began making this movie, it was always my hope that the audience would be invested by the emotional drama of the story and that the horror would serve as amplification for the conflict that these characters are going through in their daily lives.” I think he hit the nail on the head; while I had my issues with the film overall, the emotional state of the leads, in conjunction with what they were going through, made everything amplified.

If I were to pick anything about the film that I would’ve liked to have seen differently, it would be that some of the subplots about the haunting became a little chaotic; there were a lot of different aspects about what was causing what and what would bring it all to an end. I loved the settings, though; while, for the most part, the film took place primarily in an apartment, it was such a fantastic set. I don’t know if it was an actual building or designed specifically for the film. Either way, I was hooked on it, though.

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