Film review: Apartment 1303

A handful of sparky flourishes are not enough to save this lacklustre production-line copy of an already unexceptional original.

Mischa Barton in Apartment 1303. Courtesy 1303 Productions

Stephen Dalton

Apr 11, 2013

Apartment 1303
Director:
Michael Taverna
Starring: Mischa Barton, Julienne Michelle,
Rebecca
De Mornay, Corey Sevier
??

Shot in the Canadian city of Montreal, doubling for Detroit, Apartment 1303 is an uninspired reworking of Ataru Oikawa's 2007 psycho-thriller. Julienne Michelle plays Janet, a teenager who leaves her troubled home for a high-rise pad with a dark history. When Janet dies in bizarre circumstances, her sister Lana (Mischa Barton) moves in to confront the apartment's ghosts. Michael Taverna throws in the obligatory heart-jolting twists and spooky visual shocks, while Rebecca De Mornay steals a few scenes as Lana's dissolute mother. In the end, sadly, a handful of flourishes are not enough to save this copy of an already unexceptional original.

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