1BR (2019)
Directed by David Marmor
When Sarah lucks into a sweet one-bedroom at Asilo Del Mar Apartments in Los Angeles, she thinks she's hit the jackpot. It's got plenty of space, friendly tenants, group BBQs and even a cute neighbour next door. All is not what it seems: loud noises start keeping her awake at night; her cat is missing; everyone seems to be a little too helpful and friendly, except for the weirdo, Lester. Soon, Sarah learns she didn't choose this apartment — it chose her.
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15 films that influenced 1BR
What critics say influenced 1BR
…the first act brings to mind the utopian-looking dystopia of apartment living seen in movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant…
1BR shows its trump card early: this is to be a paranoid apartment thriller, like Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) or The Tenant (1976).
Directionally David Mormour does a fine job taking inspiration from Roman Polanski’s apartment trilogy (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Tenant) and delivering a psychologically unsettling tone; featuring an ominous soundtrack, great sound design and disorienting cinematography.
Surely, 1BR has a bit more in common with cult-centric films like Ari Aster’s Midsommar or Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation than apartment horror like Polanski’s The Tenant or the underseen Spanish thriller Sleep Tight.
Marmor’s narrative is certainly predictable but efficient use of limited locations and calculated performances recalls a variety of arthouse horror icons, particularly Polanski’s celebrated Apartment trilogy (Repulsion; Rosemary’s Baby; The Tenant), at least in its basic themes.
‘Apartment 1BR’ bears a strong resemblance to ‘The Invitation’, another film about a cult, both are subtle and restrained, creating an uneasy sense of dread.
David Marmor’s 1BR renovates horror’s “residential mistrust” subgenre by lifting inspiration from Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation and other proprietorial cult-based horrors.
Surely, 1BR has a bit more in common with cult-centric films like Ari Aster’s Midsommar or Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation than apartment horror like Polanski’s The Tenant or the underseen Spanish thriller Sleep Tight.
…you’ll find a slick and sometimes scary film which feels like the unruly younger and less experienced sibling of Karyn Kusama’s outstanding chiller The Invitation.
Not since “The Invitation,” has a final sequence reshaped the entire scale and scope of what came before, making “1BR” not only a decent exercise in thrills, but a room that’s worth checking into.
Playing with a sense of community and flipping it on it’s head, we dance around ideologies seen in films like The Invitation and The Endless , and to its detriment, those movies do it much better.
From stranger danger to cult classics, stories about the sinister hidden beneath the safe and mundane often intrigue; Stephen King built his career on such observations. A couple stopping at a state rest area on an interstate traveling by day is nothing unusual, but a woman traveling alone by night may rightfully fear such a stop. Then there are films like MidSommar where assumptions about quaint traditional country folk are turned on their head just as much as their so-called guests.
Surely, 1BR has a bit more in common with cult-centric films like Ari Aster’s Midsommar or Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation than apartment horror like Polanski’s The Tenant or the underseen Spanish thriller Sleep Tight.
From Midsommar’s take on gap years, grief tourism, and white supremacy to Vivarium’s meditation on the pressures of growing up and moving to the suburbs, it’s been a banner year for surreal horror about how much everything sucks.
Directionally David Mormour does a fine job taking inspiration from Roman Polanski’s apartment trilogy (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Tenant) and delivering a psychologically unsettling tone; featuring an ominous soundtrack, great sound design and disorienting cinematography.
Marmor’s narrative is certainly predictable but efficient use of limited locations and calculated performances recalls a variety of arthouse horror icons, particularly Polanski’s celebrated Apartment trilogy (Repulsion; Rosemary’s Baby; The Tenant), at least in its basic themes.
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When it comes to pets, Marmor seems to be cut from the same directorial cloth as the men who made John Wick. Giles’s punishment is horrendous but has a certain horrific irony to it, considering the pet-free and smoke-free nature of the building, as she’s woken by her beeping smoke alarm to discover his fate.
…there are precious few bits of flair — trendily ironic soft-rock music here; a nice lift from John Wick at the end — to set it apart from other films serving the same purpose.
Marmor wrote as well as directed, and he includes enjoyable nods to other films: The Stepford Wives, though this adds some community spirit and removes the docility; Logan’s Run, though Apartment 1BR is decidedly more generous on timings; and even last year’s Vivarium, which thoroughly warned us off an identikit, inescapable suburbia – easy to enter of your own free will, impossible to leave (until the kids have left home anyway).
From Midsommar’s take on gap years, grief tourism, and white supremacy to Vivarium’s meditation on the pressures of growing up and moving to the suburbs, it’s been a banner year for surreal horror about how much everything sucks.
…the first act brings to mind the utopian-looking dystopia of apartment living seen in movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant…
1BR shows its trump card early: this is to be a paranoid apartment thriller, like Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) or The Tenant (1976).
Directionally David Mormour does a fine job taking inspiration from Roman Polanski’s apartment trilogy (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Tenant) and delivering a psychologically unsettling tone; featuring an ominous soundtrack, great sound design and disorienting cinematography.
Marmor’s narrative is certainly predictable but efficient use of limited locations and calculated performances recalls a variety of arthouse horror icons, particularly Polanski’s celebrated Apartment trilogy (Repulsion; Rosemary’s Baby; The Tenant), at least in its basic themes.
Marmor’s feature debut, which takes a new arrival to Hollywood and puts her in an apartment complex whose residents have scary plans for her, is a cousin of Rosemary’s Baby in which the occult is replaced by mere brainwashing and the eerie glamour of Central Park luxury decomposes into the generic architecture of a Los Angeles starter apartment.
With a set of odd performances led by Taylor Nichols and Giles Matthey, enough is going on in this film to make for a feature channeling a Rosemary’s Baby-like conspiracy.
Marmor wrote as well as directed, and he includes enjoyable nods to other films: The Stepford Wives, though this adds some community spirit and removes the docility; Logan’s Run, though Apartment 1BR is decidedly more generous on timings; and even last year’s Vivarium, which thoroughly warned us off an identikit, inescapable suburbia – easy to enter of your own free will, impossible to leave (until the kids have left home anyway).
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1BR is also reminiscent of other *something sinister is lurking beneath the surface* flicks like Hot Fuzz and The Cabin in the Woods, though it never goes for the laughs like those two do (and shouldn’t!).
Surely, 1BR has a bit more in common with cult-centric films like Ari Aster’s Midsommar or Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation than apartment horror like Polanski’s The Tenant or the underseen Spanish thriller Sleep Tight.