[Room 205]
Plot:Wanting to start a fresh, Katrine moves from the province into a dormitory in Copenhagen and enrolls at the University. But when she crosses conniving Sanne by getting together with Sanne's ex, all hell breaks loose. Sanne and her friends try to bully Katrine out of the dormitory. They frighten her with an old myth surrounding the ghost of a former resident. Yet the myth very soon becomes a reality. By accident, Katrine sets the ghost free, who then starts a terrifyingly gruesome attack on the dormitory's residents. Only Katrine knows the fate of the remaining residents if she doesn't stop the actions of the ghost. However, no one believes Katrine's story and they accuse her of the series of mysterious murders. She seeks help in the former resident Rolf. While the residents continue to die around them, Katrine and Rolf embark on a desperate struggle to stop the ghost before it kills those that are left.

Cast: Mikkel Arendt, Rasmus Kjær Flensborg, Jon Lange, Brian Laursen, Steen Stig Lommer, Rikke Lylloff, Tania Maria Odgaard, Julie Olgaard, Neel Rønholt, Mira Wanting.

My Thoughts:Not a bad Denmarkian effort.

Review:Not alot of horror films coming out of Denmark these days. The first one to reach our shores comes in the form of Martin Barnewitz's ''Room 205", a ghost story where a young girl moves into her new college dorm, and ends up soon being acosted by weird reflections in the bathroom mirror of a dead girl around her age. In a fright, she acidentally cracks the mirror and frees her spirit, and that's when the real trouble begins. Or atleast...that's where it should've began. But in all actuality, Barnewitz doesn't utilize his ghost really well in the film...and seems almost afraid to get his or to an extent....her...hands dirty.

This movie plays up the drama between it's characters far too much, and leaves the ghost sitting on a curb by herself, sort of holding up a sign that reads "hello?? Remember me?". Granted, when the lead female moves into her new dorm, the usual dramatics occur...such as introductions to her new roommates turning into a really divisive scenario where it becomes obvious who she will and won't get along with, and who will be her friends and frenemies for the semester. Then that's all topped off with the guy girl drama where she doesn't recognize some guy on their floor is off limits which rubs one of her female roomies the wrong way.

Yeah, yeah....in a horror movie, we don't care about this shit to be quite honestly. We wanna see the ghost go judo on somebody's ass. Which never happens in this film because like I said, Barnewitz just doesn't seem to know really what to do with his ghost. He lets her do in a few people, but it's never a stable line of carnage, like in the "Grudge" films where Kayako is constantly disposing of people left and right. In "Room 205", we get a ghost sighting here and there, and some people die here and there...but one thing that does work, are the death scenes, There's some nice usage of creepy, trippy, and seizure-inducing visuals...along with shrill shrieks, scrapes, and scratches that make the ghost-attacks-victim scenes pretty entertaining to watch.

While these scenes are few and far between...when they eventually do come up, they do not disappoint. The ghost woman also has some unique ways of disposing of people including one good bit with an elevator where she basically gives one guy just enough rope to hang himself so she can finish him off. But again this film would've been so much better if we had more of these types of scenes. Instead, we get the lead girl seeing the ghost, screaming and then running away, alot of those scenes. We also get alot of character drama like I said...and the scream and run scenes, along with the character drama over trivial bullshit eats up so much clock that there's very little time to really do anything else.

Granted, I as a viewer appreciate as much character development as the next guy, but at some point you've gotta balance it all out. Not to mention that the character drama isn't evne in itself unique. It's the same crap we see american horror film characters arguing over, and it's also strange considering these are college kids who look about 21 and aren't high school teens who are 17 or under. Obviously these aren't the most mature college kids you can find, and I really think the character drama would've worked if the characters maturity level had been ramped up somewhat to the point where the viewer actually cares somewhat about their beefs rather than rolling their eyes everytime something new to argue over comes up.

The final act of the movie does manage to deliver though, and the obligatory flashback scene that explains why the dead person is super-pissed is just twisted enough to justify the spectre's anger and rage towards her "tenants". There's also some nice visual effects used in the films finale as the lead girl has to deal with many different issues in order to attempt to defeat the dead girl, everything from being branded a murderer with the bodies of her roomies piling up, to the ghost herself who doesn't want to get sent packing before she claims a few more lives.

The ending manages to shore up what was otherwise a weak terror-film by packing some nice suspense and thrills into the overall final act. ''Room 205" isn't the best film when it comes to supernatural horror movies, or ghost-related-films...but it does manage to just reach the bar of being a decent flick by doing a few things differently and packing a strong punch at the end.

Positives:Good finale, decent performances, good usage of visuals, sights, and sounds during the death scenes.

Negatives:Too much trivial drama between the characters, not enough blood, gore, and death scenes, the ghost is underused.

Overall:Two out of 4 stars.





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