Beyond Home Entertainment
R4 DVD
Room
205 could be as easily called “the university where the students are worse than
the ghosts !” Room 205 is a Danish ghost tale (aka as Kollegiet), it was
directed by Martin Barnewitz from an impressive story by Jannik Tai Mosholt.
While it has a strong feel of The Grudge, The Ring and other films in the
Japanese Horror tradition, it has more European style visuals and is strongly
character driven. Indeed, the strength of the characters is what drives this
film and this takes what could be seen as an average ghost tale to a different
level. It is also these characters which make the revenge of the ghost seem
somewhat pale compared to the viciousness of their human counterparts. The look
of the film, especially in the first half as Katrine gets settled into the
dorm, reminds me of the atmosphere of the studio in Suspiria by Dario Argento.
While clearly influenced by both J-Horror and Italian horror, it is a not by
any means a slavish copy.
Katrine
lives with an overprotective father, who is even more concerned about her
health since the suicide of
her mentally disturbed mother. Under some pressure her father agrees to allow
her to attend university to study English and she moves into a dorm in
Copenhagen.
The
dorm is a quirky place with rather nasty fellow students including Sanne, the
bitch, Rolf, the outcast (who leaves soon after she arrives) and Lukas, the
love machine who seduces all the new girls then leaves them. However, there is
more to the dorm than meets the eye. There is an urban legend about a girl who
died in the bathroom of room 205 and the student’s idea of “dorm initiation” is
to scare the new occupant of the dorms at their annual party. They duplicate
the tale of the death of the girl after encouraging the new student to take
drugs at the party.
This
year, however, something is amiss. It seems the story is based on a real event
when a girl was gang raped some twenty years before and left for dead in the
same room. Katrine’s melancholia somehow taps into this girls wandering spirit
and she begins to influence the present. Room 205 plays on the interesting
European folk notion that mirrors are the gateway to the dead and since the
dorm is filled with mirrors they carry the memories of souls that have gone
before, some “warm and fuzzy”, many not so nice.
As
Katrine is put under more pressure, the ghost begins to deal with those who are
tormenting her. While the film is character driven, the gore in the second half
of the film is impressive as each of the “dorm bullies” are slaughtered in new
and innovative ways from shards to glass to a lift.
While
the plot isn’t especially innovative, the cross cultural mix of Japanese ghost
story with its typical revenge motif and European cinematography with strong
characters and social message make it a highly successful horror film. The
acting is solid, Neel Rønholt who plays Katrine
is especially impressive.
Room
205 as presented by Beyond Home Entertainment is in Danish with clear
sub-titles, I am very pleased it is not dubbed. The picture is clear with an
emphasis on dark palettes while in the dorm and very bright during the day
time. This creates a very dream like quality to the film which is very
atmospheric. The use of very simple cinematic tricks such as power outages,
speeding up of the night sky, reflections in mirrors and so on all work to
create an incredible feeling of suspense.
This
is very successful horror film which creates a great ambient mood while
offering solid characters, a reasonable plot and some excellent scares.
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