Appartement 1303

The only reason I liked this film was because it had some pretty interesting ghost parts. Also because it did have a nice scare factor at some scenes. The story line was decent but pretty confusing. By the end you realize that the whole thing really wasn't as eventful as you thought. The whole time I was wondering what was going on; what is the mystery? But at the end, it wasn't much. The cast was OK. Basically you had eye candy jumping off a balcony and hitting the ground. There was a couple older cast members who acted kind of bad, but the focus really wasn't on them. My favorite character was played by Eriko Hatsune though. She was pretty creepy. This film could of done so much more, but it didn't. It is worth seeing once though for a couple cool scenes.

I'm not too sure what to say about Apartment 1303... being nothing more than a Horror freak (and not a film critic or even a cinema student) I often find myself in lack of words to describe films I didn't enjoy yet didn't really dislike.

I must be honest and say I was pretty disappointed, as I'm a huge fan of Asian Horror and in particular their ghost stories, The Grudge and The Ring are masterpieces of the Ghost Story sub-genre and I always find myself comparing other films to them... as for this one - I could overlook the non-original story/screenplay and focus on the good acting and fitting cinematography, had it not been for the ordinary and non frightening ghost... I mean, Asian Horror is famous for its terrifying ghosts, what happened here??

What can I say... all in all I didn't really enjoy this film, and kept looking forward to something that would happen and make it worthwhile... it didn't. I can't say it was plain bad or anything, but I can't say it was good. As this is only my humble opinion, you might disagree with me and enjoy it, so I'd recommend it to fans of Ghost Stories and Asian Horror films, but only out of an attempt to maintain objectivity. Had a friend asked, I'd say they could easily bypass this film for other, better ones.

This is another ghost story from Japan. Mariko investigates about the suicide of her sister who lived in this Apartment 1303... and do you want to know all the rest? Everything in this movie is obvious and after 5 minutes from the begin, we easily know what it will happen in the rest of the movie. It doesn't scare too much, maybe because i begin to be tired of these ghost Japanese children... Innovation is finished some years ago and there is nothing much to save about this plot: maybe just the last minutes of the movie give some "scare" . At least, the actors are decent. My vote is 4 and as you can guess, I don't recommend it.

Released nowadays just because a 3D remake is made by Hollywood. So I had to watch the original before I go watching the 3D version. But wait, this has to be good to move over to the remake.

I just found it not interesting because I was never scared and I even had to laugh a few times. The reason for my laughter was simple, the score and sound effects used. When the creepiness moves in with the, sigh, girl with long black hair, the music moves on towards some Disney happiness and distracts you away from what you see on the screen. Not only that, once the ghost speaks it's done so cheaply that it becomes ridiculous. And where is the gore or let us even say the red stuff?

No, there are much better flicks out there to see with girls having long black hair. If you dig Japanese ghost stories then you must see this but don't expect the creepiness or suspense of The Grudge (Ju-on 2002) or Ringu (1998).

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

Starting about ten years ago an explosion of Asian horror movies made their way to the United States and many have been remade. "The Ring" and "The Grudge" being the most popular of the dozen or so remakes. The Japanese movie "Apartment 1303" was released in 2007 and is now being remade with Mischa Barton starring. The remake has yet to be released and like most movies these day is in 3D.

The original "Apartment 1303" is quite similar in theme to "The Grudge" in that it revolves around the spirits of a mother and daughter that years back were involved in a murder suicide. The apartment is now cursed and infects all of the future female tenants. Asian horror films almost always involves some sort of ghost story or restless spirit that wreaks havoc on the living from beyond the grave Sayaka is a young woman who gets a deal on her first apartment. So she throws a party to celebrate. She then unexpectedly jumps off the balcony to her death in front of everybody. Her sister Mariko is convinced that it wasn't a suicide and starts her own investigation. The girls' mother is so grief stricken that her favorite daughter has died she spirals into madness. Like a lot of J-Horror films, "Apartment 1303" relies a lot on atmosphere, suspense and creepiness. Mariko finds out that her sister is the fifth young woman to have jumped of the balcony and starts to see the ghosts of the mother and daughter who haunt the place.

The back story and origins of the curse are revealed and all of the horrible things that have happened there. The story is heavily structured and planned out, but is quite an enjoyable watch for the causal horror fan. This movie is apart of the Tartan Asian Extreme DVD series. Add it to your Netflix queue today.