Apartment 212

I had no idea what to expect from "Gnaw" (aka "Apartment 212"), aside from it being a horror movie. Which, incidentally, was also the sole reason for me picking the movie up and deciding to give it a view.

While writers Jim Brennan, Haylar Garcia and Kathryn Gould did manage to put together an interesting enough story, then it should be said that this movie is rather slow paced at the helm of director Haylar Garcia, for better or worse. Sure, the movie was gradually setting up the atmosphere and introducing the characters, but it just took way, way too long in doing so, and the movie suffered from that, because nothing much happened throughout the first hour of the movie.

With that being said, don't get me wrong. Sure, it was somewhat of a drag and an ordeal to sit through the first hour with so little happening, but the last 30 minutes or so of the movie, well, see now that is where it got interesting and started to really pick up the pace. Just a shame it took an hour to get there. The last 30 minutes of the movie luckily managed to steer the sinking movie back on track and salvage it enough to pull it out of the generic and mundane highway, to the point where it actually was worthwhile watching.

While I can't claim to be overly familiar with Penelope Mitchell (playing Jennifer in "Gnaw"), then I must admit that she really handled the lead role quite well and lifted the movie quite nicely with her performance.

"Gnaw" is frightfully devoid of scary things actually. While it spent an hour setting the atmosphere, there was hardly nothing spooky or scary about that whole hour - aside from how long it took director Haylar Garcia to do so. And while the last 30 minutes of the movie sure was a wakening up call for the movie, it hardly was laced with much of anything scary.

I will say that the creature design in the movie was actually quite good, and I loved the way the creature looked. Just a shame that it had so little on-screen time. But the special effects and CGI team definitely also lifted up the movie quite a way with their efforts, getting the movie lifted out of the mediocre gutter.

All in all, a slow-paced movie that eventually becomes worthwhile watching, but hardly a horror classic in any way. And this is really not the type of movie that you will watch more than once, because there just isn't enough contents to the storyline to support multiple viewings.

I'm a sucker for creature movies, and I enjoyed the creature in this movie. The special effects were sometimes quite adequate and other times a little silly (usually while stationary). The film itself never fully commits to being a horror movie, but I still found it enjoyable enough. The story was solid, more so than most of these kinds of movies.The acting was solid. The characters were solid. The logic defying stupidity that plagues characters in horror movies was fairly light. The creature was a cross between the pixies from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and the creatures from Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and I loved it. Should you see it? I have a wall of horror films, and if I were to buy this on DVD and add it to my collection the overall quality of my collection would increase slightly. If you like creature movies, then I'd say give it a try.

"Apartment 212" is a pretty good horror story, as a young woman definitely moved into the wrong apt.. After a neighbor upstairs cries night and day, and keeps her awake, and then blows her brains out, she all at once starts breaking out in sores all over her body. She had shop lifted a mysterious box from a shop and took it home, and it ends up causing her some severe trouble. It's nothing special, but I liked the characters, and the story has been done many times. I would recommend it, just for fun, because it was well done and pretty entertaining. 3/5

A beat-down wife runs away from her abusive marriage to start a new life. The apartment building she moves into is on the seedy side. So much so that her neighbor downstairs offs herself leaving behind a health hazard of an apartment. Once the city has cleaned the suicide apartment our heroine finds and takes a beautiful little box from the pile of stuff. Her troubles start. The box is indeed beautiful and the demon is great, too. Its look and movement both.

A slow yet solid movie with good acting, nice production value and an excellent last act!