Girl on the Third Floor

Quite a disturbing film , dark and perverse in many ways. The story itself is nothing new but has deeply disturbing sexual connotations with man-milk emmanating from the wall power sockets/holes and wall switches that look like the female orifice as well as pulsating holes in walls and the old silicone wall effect akin to body horror greats like David Lynch and it does on the budget accomplish a rather gruesome and warped horror.

Acting is average and the story is very average having been done many times before but the sexual perversion and accompanying gooey special effects really will have you squirming, it has some quite shocking hammer-tastic female revenge action which definitely pushes this out of the bargain basement bin. Its not great but its not bad either but most assuredly it is quite disturbing so gets a fair average 5/10 from me!

Girl on the Third Floor is another simple haunted house premise with a twist. Is this a great film? No, of course not. But it's damn entertaining. More than that, it's absolutely insane. The third act goes completely off the rails and it's both grotesque and glorious to watch. Horror films could use more insanity these days.

It isn't scary, which is the main drawback. You know where the story is going right from the start. The details are different enough to stand out and the gore effects are genuinely gruesome, but there's no real suspense to be built. And the tone is camp as it is, so it's hard to take anything too seriously.

Then again, why should we? It's a trashy horror movie about a guy in a weird house with a hot neighbor. Why not get crazy with it? And that's what they did, and it worked for me.

The story follows CM Punk as he tries to renovate his strange century plus old house. Strange encounters occur, both within the home and with neighbors and townfolks, which brings me to my biggest issue. Punk/Don has several strange encounters in which the conversations make little sense. Per example, he meets a barkeep in a completely empty bar, who asks him if he is "queer", then states strait men don't do well in his home. The questions come out of no where and Punk/Don never follows up with inquiry like a normal human. The pastor neighbor also makes constant allusions to oddities, clearly indicating town members know something about the house, and yet nobody does what real humans would do and push for further questioning. This all culminates with a dubious explanation at the end that only leads to more questions and non sense. It almost feels like large parts of dialogue were cut from the film that would help it feel less choppy. Ultimately, I think Punk offered a good performance. Some of the imagery was creepy and interesting. I felt it could have been quite good if the story was ironed out.

I don't know why but I found the film reminded me of the Toolbox Murders, maybe it was because of the level of brutality it had, or was it the acting? Not sure.

It's a very casual first three quarters of an hour, any excuse for them to zoom in on CM Punk's body or tattoos, after that initial meander it does open up quickly, becoming quite nasty, and a little surreal, some scenes are genuinely nasty.

I can see what they attempted, giving a modern twist to a genre that has literally been done to death, they were on the right track, but it somehow missed the mark, maybe the acting needed to be better and the script a little tighter.

Some parts worked, unfortunately some didn't, 5/10.

Watched this at the SXSW and did not know what to expect. Turned out to be a quite entertaining horror flick, directed by Tavis Stevens. Don Jon, an ex-con with a criminal past and some alcohol issues (a delightful performance from former WWE wrestler "CM Punk") bought a house in the Chicago suburbs for himself and his 8-month pregnant successful wife (Trieste Kelly Dunn). He wants to rebuild the house single-handedly while his wife stays in town. His efforts to renovate the house involve some really funny scenes, CM Punk has a great talent for physical humour. While working and sleeping in the house, some strange things happen, glass balls roll over the floors, eerie noises occur, a young girls shows up, trying to seduce Don Jon, and the neighbouring church's pastor seems to know more about the house than she tells. I really liked this movie, since it is a fresh mix of haunted house, horror, slasher, family drama, and comedy--and jumping back and forth between the genres plays nicely with the audience's expectations. Despite some shortcomings in the writing, the actors, and the camerawork are above average. Also the sound design was very skilful.