Kollegiet

I just saw this and was greatly disappointed because I love horror movies, and this one sucked so bad. The acting is inept, the plot non-existent even for horror. It is just a Danish rip-off of recent brilliant Japanese horror such as The Ring and Dark Water. However, these movies keeps you guessing and being interested in what is going to happen towards the end. I simply walked out from this movie after about an hour because I didn't care anymore what would happen. The script of this movie is extremely pathetic. I have two degrees from KUA in English and it is nothing like described in this movie. I don't mean in terms of good and bad, I just mean it was an extremely odd description of KUA, and it didn't ring a bell with me at all although I have spent 8 years there. I have never tried living in a dormitory but I doubt it is anything like described in the movie. The use of a mirror in the movie was extremely effective but, all things being equal, I don't think this is a coherent movie at all. It is just random scenes cut together to try and scare (and bore) the audience. In the cinema in Lyngby (a small town) where I watched this tonight there were two women who were screaming all the time in the scary scenes. And they are indeed scary. But this is just an imitation of Japanese horror, and it is a pity that Martin Barnewitz(!?) did not either just make a movie of 90 minutes "terror" or put in a decent story.

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.

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.

Yeah, on the whole, this is a lesser version of said recent classic in the genre. However, let's dig deeper. Please ignore the votes of 1; I don't know if it's bias or an unwillingness to judge something fairly if they didn't like it that caused them, but objectively speaking, this could be far worse. The technical aspect is, in fact, quite expertly done. Editing, cinematography, the sound, the score, all excellent. The FX are pretty convincing. This builds atmosphere rather well, getting immensely creepy and intense when it goes for such. It only goes for that, though; the plot is severely underdeveloped, essentially unoriginal(as I already mentioned) and clearly merely exists to stage the terror(which, again, is great). There are scenes that serve no purpose other than to add more fear-inducing stuff(the utterly gratuitous dream sequences, for example). In one bit, a couple of people are laughing in the sort-of background, and it gets to be excessive(no one goes on for *that* long), and it costs credibility, as does the one-note, single-trait(innocent, "evil", two-faced, etc.) characters(with what can be a seriously messed up logic). See, I would argue that the acting in this is good, and they(particularly the leads) certainly tend to be natural; they simply aren't allowed to truly explore their roles. I think all of this goes for many of our mainstream productions. Every conclusion about the ghost is reached by guesswork, yet it guides numerous of their actions. This underlines the issue that they don't reveal much about it; while mystery is not a bad thing, you can't expect it to have an impact when what the protagonist is doing lacks a solid basis. In as straightforward a story as this, the audience should never ask "why" someone we're meant to side with is doing what they're doing. There are other gaping holes. The nonexistent fleshing out keeps us from caring when anyone dies. Near the ending, it gets even worse. The very last shot is cheap, sacrificing a chunk of the value of the overall concept for a jump-scare that makes little sense. This could have been an excellent drama-thriller about closed social environments, or an effective piece of supernatural horror. All it had to do was make a choice of what to be, instead of promising both and not completely delivering on either(if you think it succeeds as the latter, try re-watching it, and pick out all the filler and the portions that don't pay off). What we get is a film of two mismatched halves, and you can easily tell where they crudely overlap. Wasted potential. Please, guys, get a better script next time. Perhaps the US remake will improve it. On the plus side, this features a couple of *hawt* chicks, including Rønholt and Mira Wanting(known from Hvide Løgne, or White Lies). There is some disturbing content, bloody and gory violence and sexuality in this. The DVD comes with an informative and interesting commentary track(by the sound guy, the photographer, Neel and director), a 23 minute well-done and fun behind the scenes production, a theatrical trailer and a teaser. I recommend this to fans of those who made it and/or the idea. 5/10

Room 205 (Kollegiet): Danish Horror. Katrine moves into a student residence in Copenhagen, her dorm is run by a clique. Their domineering games and power plays are like something from Dangerous Liaisons. Twenty years ago a girl died in mysterious circumstances in the dorm. Katrine starts to have worrying dreams and when the clique play a trick on her she smashes a mirror releasing the angry ghost. The bullying at times is almost as bad as the supernatural horror, a few people exerting control over others. But when the ghost gets going not Just Katrine but also the bullies become aware of it's existence and it's power to affect things in the materiel world. It starts off with poltergeist effects but soon blood is spilled and then the ghost begins to pick people off. Some horrific scenes as lifts and mirror shards are used to dispatch the students. The ghost herself is well imagined and quite terrifying as appears in mirrors and lifts. Mundane and mondo horror mix in this intriguing piece. Directed by Martin Barnewitz and written by Jannik Tai Mosholt. On Netflix. 7/10.