Kollegiet

Originality in horror is hard to achieve. I have heard this film compared to The Ring by more than one person, but, as I liked that movie, I would give this a chance.

The incredibly beautiful Danish actress Neel Rønholt play Katrine, a girl who moves into a college dorm that is haunted by the ghost of a girl who died in Room 205. Katrine is kind of a klutz. She is always breaking things. When she breaks the mirror in the bathroom of Room 205, the ghost is released.

Suspicion is thrown on her after some deaths: Lena (Mira Wanting),Lucas (Jon Lange), and Sanne (Julie Ølgaard); and she joins with another outcast, Rolf (Mikkel Arendt) in a plan to capture the ghost.

Good FX and tension, with lots of screams. A great ending.

(2008) Room 205/ Kollegiet (In Danish with English subtitles) HORROR

Female teenage student, Katrine (Neel Rønholt) whose just moved into a University dorm and while their start to receive flashbacks that's related to an urban legend about a previous female student death that is somehow connected with the dorm of "Room 205"- hence the title! The audience is being kept in the dark about what happened until near the end! Inconsistent and conventional horror film with coincidences which lacks credibility raising a lot of questions without answering them, such as "what makes this typical normal student chosen to be the one to get flashbacks from the dead girl without affecting any of the others whose stayed their longer than she has?", "What became of the other people who were their when this death occurred to the dead girl who was once alive?" and finally "How or ever were there was ever was a cover up?"

Danish supernatural horror following the style of the recent Asian ghost story crop? Quite possibly. 'Room 205' isn't too bad, but fairly an uninspired minor effort on all fronts with the college dramas (outcast---fitting in with in-crowd) taking centre stage, as the slow-moving ghost story feels secondary. When this side of the story begins to push along it's rather straight-forward with a nasty little back-story (told in flashback later on) behind the evil entity. Even the stringy concept about souls being trapped in mirrors is an interesting touch, which was done better in the little more complex Korean horror film 'Into the Mirror' (that got an American revamp in 2008; 'Mirrors'). In all, the old-hat story is kind of flat and threadbare with clichéd build-ups and scares, but at least coherent in its progress and considerably depressing in tone. Too bad it ends on not a redundant, but lame cheap shock ending. Something a little more haunting would have worked better. In these cases it's what you call all style, little substance. The slick direction proves it with the flashed up visuals, broodingly dour illustrations and effectively instrumented atmospheric sound work caught within a cramp, gloomy dormitory. Juddering editing and camera-work seems to be used around the minimal special effects and sped up jolts which are competently pulled off. The make-up of the ghost is slender and a little bit of splatter doesn't go astray either. The performances were a lot better than expected and one of the film's main staying power. The endearingly sympathetic Neel Rønholt is strong enough in the central role and Julie Ølgaard is potently good as the spitefully, stuck-up antagonist. Moderately creepy, but systematically plotted and forgettable.

OK so I pluralized friend, actually it was just one friend of mine who had seen this movie with his girlfriend who told me to go watch this with my girlfriend. The reason he thought I should see it was because him and his girlfriend really enjoyed it, plus he said he thought it was a really "scary" movie.

Well I took his suggestion for a Saturday night when me and the misses didn't have anything to do but go see a movie. I thought it could be cool to be scared and if it would make my girl happy so much the better. Well of course the evening was a bust because this movie could not deliver the goods... at all.

I wouldn't dream of spoiling but I think a lot of comments here hits the mark pretty well. The story is so void of originality I thought it was a joke and I kept thinking if this actually was an authorized remake of (insert 20-30 films here).

The story is so done first of all and second, elements are thrown into the movie every where without ever being justified. out of the 5 actors only 2 are able to do a halfway decent job, the main character and the actor Mira Wanting actually pull it off alright. Especially Mira actually gets something out of her character with a few subtle looks and faces here and there she creates a little intensity.

I don't blame the director for this movie at all, actually he shows a lot of promise but with no script for it he can't create the creepy atmosphere that he really does strive for. I just saw what other movies the writer of this one has written and I can see a pattern, in the future I'll be sure to avoid Jannik Tai's written movies, or at the very least, not expect an original idea or thought from him.

Apparently the Danish can make subpar J-horror movies too. Room 205 features stock characters, a mish-mash plot and almost zero suspense leading to an abrupt and clumsily-paced climax. The ghost and its appearances are more eyebrow-furrowing than scary and at about the hour mark you'll start to wonder if this is actually a horror film or a movie about angsty Danish college kids - Degrassi Copenhagen if you will. The acting is passable but it takes so long to go anywhere that you end up not caring for a single person in the film. This is definitely one of the more disappointing flicks in GHI's 2008 batch. Only recommended for hardcore ghost story fans with nothing else left to watch.