Apartment 1303

Apartment 1303 is a J-horror ghost story by Ataru Oikawa whereby each new female resident who comes to rent the apartment of the same title meets a smacking end, by jumping off its balcony 13 storeys up. It is thought to be nothing more than suicide by the police until the apartment takes its fifth victim; a sweet, happy, and popular girl named Sayako of whose sister Mariko is adamant that she would never have committed suicide. So the film follows Mariko as she investigates the apartment and does some research upon it and finds out that once upon a time, an abusive mother lived there with her daughter both of whom are now dead.

Mariko’s character is one who in front of others is a little cold, detached and uncaring, an impression we get from her stoic attitude at her sister’s funeral and dysfunctional relationship with her mother. However when she visits the apartment of her recently deceased sister, she spends time looking through old photo albums and through the pictures on her sister’s phone, until she finally breaks into a hysterical fit of tears whilst watching a stand up comedy show on the television. There is a lot of pressure on the youth of Japan to succeed and be specific types of responsible citizens and it seems that Mariko is an example of the type of Japanese girl who responds to these pressures by detaching herself from them. She is not the cute and lovable Japanese stereotype…no that would be her sister. Markio is the cigarette smoking, hardass who restrains herself from showing her vulnerabilities in public and as a result is branded as heartless. Parents have high expectations of their children and in a society that seems to split youth into two categories, when a child disappoints their parents they often end up falling into either the Sayako or Mariko stereotype.

Apartment 1303 is a film that has once again employed a similar cause and effect reasoning as other J-Horror ghost stories. What we have is a disgruntled girl who wishes to take revenge on other females, this time by possessing them and throwing them off the balcony, as a way of passing on the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother. Predictable clues are also left within the apartment, such as an earring, a chewed up water bottle and a foul stench that emanates from the closet, which are then explained during a dismal flashback showing the disturbing relationship that Yukiyo had with her mother. Again a parallel is created between the protagonist Mariko and her mother and Yukiyo and hers as both daughters are objects of contempt to their mothers and the verbal abuse that Mariko receives from her mother is on a par with that of Yukiyo; whilst Mariko receives no physical abuse from what we can see (she is woman in her mid twenties now anyway), it can be inferred that when she was younger she may have, given her mother’s erratic temperament. There is also a woman and her young daughter who live in the apartment next door to the haunted one, and given the slovenly disposition of the mother and the sinister, introverted nature of the daughter (who seems to have some connection to the deaths that take place), it is fair to say that all is not well between them either.

I can’t say that this film is at all that frightening however it does have some pretty cool moments such as when the ghost of Yukiyo makes her self present and proceeds to have about 50 or 60 tendrils explode from her hair and grab hold of a trio of girls who have been partying in the apartment. There is one particular scene that has to be one of the best of the film and it is a high angle shot coming from behind Yukiyo, who is made to tower over Mariko writhing on the floor, with her hair extensions shooting off either side of her head, like spiders legs. Another nice touch is Yukiyo’s creepy vocal filter, which makes her sound like the demon grandmother from The Evil Dead 2 film.

Compared with its brothers and sisters within the genre Apartment 1303 comes across as a more diluted version of stories that have been told with a greater depth in terms of back-story and character development. For example, about the only history we really get of the apartment is of the minimal conversation Mariko has with the police inspector about it and the 5 minute flashback sequence. There is no real great build up of events that surround the apartment, which would cause it to induce more fear in the viewer and the two initial deaths are too sudden in there execution. As far as characters go there’s nothing new, though Mariko does show some depth of emotion and an unpredictable mixture of solicitude and disinterest that makes her one reason to watch the film. Apartment 1303 doesn’t rank up with those of a similar style such as The Grudge or Dark Water, but what it lacks in storytelling and FX, it slightly makes up for in its solid acting, melancholy score and irresolution.