Plot Summary: When Kim and Izzy move into a new apartment they are unaware of its dark history. Soon it begins to affect their lives.
You'll find more horror movies on haunted homes and apartments than anything else, but that is because there is a staunch belief that people who reside in a place for a long time end up leaving behind a residue of emotions when they move. Sometimes it is the negativity that they leave behind which culminates and manifests into something evil.
Regardless, this belief has been surmounted over the years and the idea reiterated in several movies. Some of them were hits while most were unable to bring turn the idea into fruition on screen.
Room 203 isn't a badly made movie. In fact, the acting is quite decent, especially from the leads. It is the villain in the movie that dampens the otherwise entertaining story. The climax doesn't do justice to the build-up of the story.
We do know how it ends, though. In that Room 203 takes a no-nonsense, no-twist-in-the-tale, approach. There are no surprises there and it sort of is a good thing. Sometimes, adding a cliffhanger in movies doesn't always work and seems almost gratuitous. Room 203 is pretty much straightforward and if it hadn't been for the dull climax, the movie would have been more entertaining and worth a recommendation.
ROOM 203 Movie Plot
A contractor is fixing an apartment when he finds a hole in the wall. Of course, he sticks his hand inside and shrieks when it comes out bloody. He also finds a necklace in there.
He's still working on the apartment until night when his girlfriend comes in to give him company. He gives her the necklace he found which she wears immediately and gets affected. The next thing she does is use a broken beer bottle to slit her neck. Clearly whoever the necklace belonged to doesn't think sharing is caring.
The contractor calls for help and tries to run out of the room but the door slams in his face and we see it is Room 203. Cue the title card.
What happened to the guy and his girlfriend? We never ever find out.
In the next scene, we meet two perky girls giving off best friends forever vibes. They are overly excited seeing the new apartment while the landlord, Ronan, sports a grimace.
The girls are Izzy and Kim and they are just so excited to be moving up in life. Kim is starting off college and Izzy is pursuing a career in acting.
They see a mosaic painting of knights being stabbed, right in their living room and are about to touch it when Ronan tells them, gruffly, that nope don't you dare touch it. The girls hold back their curious hands but what are the chances they aren't going to touch it once Ronan leaves?
Turns out the girls take warning pretty seriously and don't touch it for the rest of the movie. Until the end of course. But these are nice, dutiful girls who don't spare a glance at the painting after Ronan tells them not to touch it.
He also tells them not to go to the basement. Now why would anyone want to venture into a basement for bi reason? A dark, musty basement, possibly filled with rats? No, thank you.
But this is a horror movie and of course the landlord has to warn the girls because a basement is where horrorific things happen. And when someone tells someone not to go to a place in a horror movie, then of course everyone goes exactly there.
However, Kim nods and that is to serve as a promise that she will not go into the basement. Izzy is just mesmerised by the glass painting and keeps staring at it rather than look at the view.
Kim hands over an envelope full of money to Ronan who counts it and then that's that. No official receipts are handed here. No proof that the girls rented out this place. Maybe that was Ronan's intention?
After Ronan leaves, the girls keep standing near the mosaic and give excited mewls.
Later the girls settle in and Kim notices a hole in the wall of her room. This was something that she should have noticed before and asked Ronan about it, but nope. The painting in the living room was so mesmerising that the girls didn't find it necessary to inspect the apartment they were renting.
They still don't want to bother Ronan who gave them such a good deal and so Izzy thinks it is better it stick her hand in and see if there are some electrical wires she can be electrocuted with or a giant rat that can bite her finger. It doesn't make sense why Izzy would want to stick her hand into a hole. Oh yes, because she wanted to try out the tired old prank of being caught by something on the other side.
Kim steps up to save her friend courageously but Izzy burst out laughing. She pulls out her hand and with it, a necklace, the same one the contractor's girlfriend wore. Except the time Izzy doesn't use a bottle to cut her throat. This time the ghost decides to take her own sweet time to wreak havoc.
Kim warns Izzy not to wear the necklace because it may have mold ij it, you know, considering she found it stashed inside a smelly hole in the wall. But Izzy claims it is vintage, doesn't even use a tissue to wipe it, and wears it around her neck.
The girls then make plans to go out for drinks in the evening. They go to a bar, meet two guys, one of them gets really inappropriate with Kim causing Izzy to step up and punch him in the face.
The girls head back home with only Izzy managing to hook up with a guy. Later she has trouble remembering the guy's name and so do we. Was it Tommy? Tony?
The poor guy gets hardly two minutes of screen time. He offers to be dominated but Izzy is already snoring away. He goes into the bathroom and is promptly stabbed.
Kim is having nightmares, probably after seeing Ronan's grumpy face when the girls came home. Izzy wakes her up in the morning and tells her she has no idea where the guy went. The girls shrug it off.
The guy who was killed didn't leave behind a single drop of blood. Or the girls don't notice. They certainly didn't notice a gaping hole in the room before renting out the apartment.
Kim realizes it is late and runs to her college for orientation. But of course she is too late. But she sure is lucky because she runs into a guy called Ian who was supposed to show her around in the first place. He too is a journalism major and they quickly hit it off.
When she returns to the apartment, Izzy tells her about meeting someone who promised her an audition. She may also be into this woman. After Tommy/Tony disappeared after one night, Izzy has changed her preferences where dating is concerned. Kim tells her about a guy she's just met and Izzy is supportive of it.
This is the last we see of two friends having a good time in the apartment because now it is time to throw in some horror scenes.
Kim tries to cover the hole by placing a mirror on it but it keeps falling. Izzy keeps having nightmares that cause her to sleepwalk and bump her head and show up in Kim's room.
Kim makes an issue about Izzy disturbing her sleep but she promises it won't happen again.
Izzy has a history of her own. Her mother died of a drug overdose and Kim, who was supposed to be her best friend, doesn't even show up for the funeral.
Kim has to write an article on someone else and she chooses to write it about Izzy's tragedy although she would not use names.
She also begins to see things crawling in and out of the hole, like a crow.
Kim finally decides that she needs to conduct some research. She is after all studying to be a journalist after all. Ian is of course more than eager to help. There is no one else around anyway. No more extras in the movie so he just has to help Kim no matter what.
Kim finally finds out that a banker had killed his wife and then killed himself. But the child somehow survived.
Ian decides to research on the painting and enters a church. He gets his answers readily when he realizes the painting may be upside down and depicting something evil.
Izzy in the meantime, stays at home long enough to receive Kim's papers. She goes to put them in her room only to find Kim's article in the printer tray.
When Kim comes home to tell Izzy about what she learned about the apartment, her friend accuses her of selling her tragedy and that everyone would know the article is about her because she's so popular.
ROOM 203 Ending Explained with Spoilers
At this point, Ronan decides he wants to show his villainous side. He manages to capture Kim while Izzy is being possessed.
Ronan reveals he's the boy who survived the horrific incident where his father killed his mother. There are some symbols on the floor and Kim is supposed to be a sacrifice.
Ian comes to the apartment and no one turns on the lights throughout the movie because it is important to save on the electricity bill.
Izzy, in her possessed state, kills him. Kim manages to get rid of Ronan and promises that he will not get her friend. She goes to the basement and finds Izzy in the corner, getting ready to go for another kill.
Kim manages to get the necklace off her neck and Izzy returns to normal.
In a voice-over, Kim uses flowery words to describe her unbreakable bond with Izzy.
In the end, we see a shot of the hole and it is too dark to see if there is anything on the other side.
The end.
Room 203 has its moments but lacks frightening scenes. The first half especially is actually not bad but every good horror movie must have a terrifying antagonist, someone or something that makes us as viewers want to jump up and support the characters before they turned victims.
Unfortunately, the antagonist is really weak here. There is barely any screen time given to it which is why the final battle isn't as effective or thrilling as it should be.
Scare Scale: 3.5/5
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