Se-jin is a single woman living alone in an apartment. She has no real friends, no boyfriend, and is just focused on her work. One day after leaving her job, and is about to take the subway home, a strange girl shows up from nowhere to commit suicide infront of the moving train, and tries to drag Se-jin with her when she throws herself onto the tracks. Later on, her neighbors start to die one by one, and Se-jin figures out that it happens every night at 9:56. Lights starts flickering in a few apartment opposite to hers, and the next day someone's found dead. She tries to tell her neighbors, and even the police, but no one seems to believe her. She spends some time with a paralyzed girl that her neighbours take care of in the opposite building, and soon finds out a terrible secret that they all share about the girl.
From director Ahn Byeong-ki (Nightmare, Phone, Bunshinsaba), comes here another stylish Korean horror movie, this time called A.P.T. or Apartment. It looks like your standard Korean horror flick, slick with nice photography, great acting, and features all these great things fans of Korean cinema have gotten used to. But not totally unexpected, it doesn't work wonders with delivering a great horror story, or any good and effective scares for that matter. Having read about the film, seen some trailer, and been waiting around for it to be released, I really wanted to like A.P.T. since it was just too long ago since I saw some Korean horror movie that had any real effect on me. And while this film might look great, it just fails miserably with delivering any real horror or scares whatsoever.
Talking about scares, A.P.T. has tons of them to offer. Unfortunately they're all way too to easy to predict, and if you've seen a lot of horror flicks, you'll know exactly what's coming and when. Biggest problem though wasn't that the scares failed to scare, it was more the lack of originality that the movie had to offer, and it felt like it was just a mix of previously released Korean horror flicks. This time there are no deadly cellphones, no haunted schools, no crazy videotape, but instead an apartment building, and last but not least, a ghostly girl with long black hair that covers her face. Sounds familiar? Well, get ready for things to repeat themselves.
 
I'm not gonna lie, I was really excited to get to see A.P.T. but at the same time I was also afraid that it would just be another lame horror experience, followed by disappointment. And while it wasn't really followed by disappointment, it sure was a lame horror experience. The way it started off didn't just look great, but had a little bit of a freaky feel to it as well. The scares were many and there right from the start, and even if they weren't very effective, A.P.T. still looked like it had a lot of potential. The story seemed interesting enough, the acting was very convincing, and it all seemed all right until halfway through, when it took a different turn, and slowly things started to go down-hill.
What a movie like this needs is some mystery, but unfortunately everything was revealed, and so didn't leave room for any thoughts whatsoever. What a movie like this needs most though is a clever twist towards the end. They all try, and while some succeed in delivering that, most others fail, and so does A.P.T. But I must still admit that I was interested in the storyline all the way through, and since the pacing was really good, one never got bored or had time to lose interest while it kept running. Worst thing with A.P.T. though, and what came off as totally unoriginal, was that every time the ghost girl showed up, there was a sound extremely similar to the sound the ghost makes in the Ju-on movies. On the plus side, it had some cool effects to offer, and it looked gloomy and dark but in a very nice way. But obviously, it takes more than just that to succeed.
I'm not gonna say that A.P.T. was a bad movie, because that it was not. It looked great, slick, featured some good acting, and had a good pace all the way through, and never felt the least bit slow. But as a horror film it was just too predictable, the scares weren't effective enough, and if you've seen a bunch of Asian horror flicks before, you've most likely seen it all. So while I can't really recommend it, at least I can say that it's still worth a look. Watch it and judge for yourself, but don't expect too much since chances that you'll be disappointed even if not expecting anything are pretty high.
Back to Asian Review Archive
|
ALTERNATIVE TITLE: A.P.T., Apartment, A-pa-teu
MOVIE YEAR: 2006
DIRECTOR: Ahn Byeong-ki
WRITING CREDITS: Ahn Byeong-ki
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Ko So-young, Kang Seong-jin, Jang Hee-jin
COUNTRY: South Korea
RUNTIME: 90 min
RATING: 5/10
Apartment Website/IMDB Click here
Apartment Trailer Click here
|
