Apartment 143 [Blu-ray]

The main problem with Apartment 143 is not the movie itself, but the fact we have been inundated with a host of hand held ghost stories that are "real" found footage with actors. The production by itself is decent, but given the fact we have seen it before will cause one to quickly get bored.

Three ghost hunters investigate the bizarre events at the apartment of Alan White (Kai Lennox). Paul (Rick Gonzalez) is the technology guy and the one we have to blame for all the cameras. Ellen (Fiona Glascott) is the secretary and assistant but vastly prefers the title "gate keeper." The brains of the operation is Dr. Hezler (Michael O'Keefe). Alan has two children: Benjamin (Damian Roman) who is four and Caitlin (Gia Mantegna) who is at that difficult age. Caitlin has a very cold if not hateful relationship with her father, which immediately makes you think we are headed down the ghost/incest lane, something that has become too much of a substitution for good writing here of late.

The mother Cindy has passed on. They believe she is the haunting spirit. Caitlin blames her father for her death.

This production is subject to the same criticism of all found film productions. This one experiments with an idiotic head mounted camera that gives the film a "fish eye" view. The writing and acting were acceptable "B" grade fair. The scare factor was middle of the road. The main problem with this film is that we didn't get to feel for the characters. We got to know about them, but just didn't care.

PARENTAL GUIDE: F-bomb, no sex or nudity.

Movies that are made from camera point-of-view can be very hit or miss. This one hits for several reasons:

1) The acting is very well done. The people are mostly believable in their roles, and the actor playing the dad does a great job (has some of the weightier emotional scenes).

2) The use of cameras everywhere makes sense in this case. They are a group of paranormal researchers trying to capture what is going on, and the use of lots of well placed cameras would be a good idea. So, cutting between them makes feels natural, and the use of them here really adds to an authentic feeling atmosphere.

3) The paranormal activity that gets captured on film happens very organically, it's not over the top, and folks seem to respond the way their characters would be expected.

4) The story itself isn't trite or hackneyed. It's a story that's hard to predict exactly why the events are taking place, and you feel yourself wondering what's the real cause, especially given how calm in certain cases the lead researcher seems to be (he's pretty confident he knows the real cause, but is trying to eliminate other possibilities).

Overall, I liked it much more than I expected to and if you like horror films, and especially camera-POV type films, this is a good one to watch.

It's not going to win any Oscars, but Apartment 143 was a solid , suspenseful horror film. There were the appropriate bumps, knocks, eerie noises, and confused people. What made it far more interesting was the story itself. While it followed the standard pacing ad formula the characters were engaging, smart and most of all, scared.

I'm not a real fan of horror films but this one was definitely worth the time!