(Programming Note: I am going to continue the Hindsight is 2020 column until the end of January. My goal is to watch as many 2020 movies as I can before I begin work on the 14th Annual Video Vacuum Awards. The nominations should be announced in early February.)
A young woman named Sarah (Nicole Brydon Bloom) rents a room in a seemingly idyllic apartment complex. It isn’t until she learns about their strict no-pets-allowed policy that things take a turn for the horrific. The tenants then kidnap her and put her through a grueling mental and physical conditioning period in hopes of making her part of “the community”.
1BR, like The Sect, is one of those horror films that FEELS like it should be a slow burn, but it moves at such a brisk pace that you get the rewards from a slow burn horror flick without all the incessant waiting around. I liked the way writer/director David Marmor played his cinematic cards. Just when you think it’s leaning one way; it skips a beat and dovetails into a slightly different subgenre. There are parts that will probably remind you equally of Roman Polanski, Eli Roth, and M. Night Shyamalan, but he is able to weave those influences into an effective tapestry of horror.
Marmor doesn’t waste a whole lot of time getting down to the nitty gritty either, which is a sure sign of a director with a promising future. He’s just as good at balls-out horror as he is slowly ratcheting up the tension. I won’t spoil the big shocking moment, but I will say that there’s a scene here that ranks right up there with the bunny boiling sequence in Fatal Attraction.
The film is anchored by a good performance by Bloom. We really feel for her, especially when her character is going through her conditioning phase. (It’s kind of like Deadly Yoga.) She’s a real trooper for being put through the rigorous demands of the role, and hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of her in the near future.
I can’t say it’s entirely perfect. Some of the amateurish performances by the other residents in the complex range from stilted to goofy. What makes the movie a rarity among modern horror films is that it actually manages to stick the landing. Many times, I tend to write these things off by stating, “it should’ve been a half-hour Twilight Zone episode”. However, this is one of the few times when the length is just about on the nose. The structure is compact and efficient, and there are few (if any) wasted moments.
In short, 1BR is worth the rental.
No comments:
Post a Comment