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After Sayaka
commits suicide at her own housewarming
party, her sister, Mariko, decides to find out why
Sayaka decided to do this horrible thing. She finds
out that the apartment that Sayaka just moved into has
a morbid history and that everyone who's lived there
for the past couple of years have committed suicide.
Is it just a coincidence or is there something more
to this mysterious apartment?
Guess what? It's another uninspired Japanese horror
movie with a generic plot, a long-haired ghost, a
haunted apartment, a mystery that's aching to be
solved and a never-ending grudge. I almost feel as
if I don't need to review this movie as I've reviewed
copious amounts of movies with the exact same story
before, but naturally I will review it anyway so you'll
have to excuse me if it seems as if you've read this
review before - because believe you me, I will be
repeating myself. That I can promise.
Apartment 1303 revolves around Mariko, a young woman
whose sister recently committed suicide after moving
into apartment 1304... nah, I'm just kidding, it was
apartment 1303 of course (and yes I will indeed be
padding out this review with silly lines like that).
Like a normal human being, she's grieving a lot and
doesn't have the energy to investigate why her sister
committed suicide (haha, I told you). Sorry, I'll try
to be serious. Mariko naturally senses that there's
something wrong with the apartment and that some kind
of supernatural force lies behind the mysterious death
of her sister. And guess what? Her instincts were right.
Something about this movie made me believe that this
was more aimed at the international market than the
Japanese market (the fact that the opening credits
were in English kind of gave me a hint). In Japan this
mediocre horror tale was sent straight to DVD while it
got a theatrical release in several other countries.
Well, in my opinion, this is a pure DTV flick. The
production values obviously weren't very good, the
script seems to have been written in less than a week
and it didn't seem as if any effort went into creating
a good atmosphere or scaring the audience.
This was definitely a lackluster experience for me,
I've seen it so many times before that I can't even
tell which movie is which anymore. Looking back on
my ghost reviews I don't even remember watching most
of them since they're so forgettable. This is also
the case with Apartment 1303 and I see no reason to
why you should check this out when there are so many
severely better ghost stories out there. Japanese
horror flicks just aren't that great anymore.
Nah.
Piano and strings. We've heard it before.
This story has been recycled so many times that the
cheap scares simply don't work anymore. We know how
it's going to end, we know why the ghost is killing
and we know that nothing is going to make sense. So
why do we still check these movies out? Curiosity
perhaps? I don't know, don't waste your time with
Apartment 1303 as it's about as exciting as a funeral.
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