Roommate situations can be precarious at times even under the best of circumstances, but under worst case scenarios, they can be a complete nightmare. Normally, the latter consists of someone being excessively messy, loud, or rude. For a young woman named Laura (Laura Dooling), roommate problems go from nightmarish to an outright fight for survival in The Dead Girl in Apartment 03.

Written and Directed by Kurtis Spieler, The Dead Girl in Apartment 03 sets the pace right off by introducing us to Laura, who after hearing strange scratching noises coming from her roommate Elizabeth’s room, discovers her dead. Detectives Richards (Adrienne King, of Friday the 13th fame) and Miller (Frank Wihbey) are called in to investigate, as it’s clear there are troubling circumstances surrounding Elizabeth’s passing.

Left alone to deal with the emotional consequences of finding Elizabeth dead, Laura struggles to move on, reaching out to her ex boyfriend for moral support. When strange and frightening happenings begin to occur inside the apartment, Laura attempts to uncover the details of what happened, while her own safety is compromised in terrifying ways. 

The Dead Girl in Apartment 03 makes it clear that it considers itself a ghost story, though what truly is going on is more layered than that. While it wastes little time in the beginning before getting to the catalyst of the story, it then slows down substantially for the remainder of the film. The concept is clear, and while not necessarily completely original, shows the possibility for a creepy, frightening little tale. It never fully lives up to that potential, however, and instead gets in its own way with unnecessary plot diversions.

While it does deliver several anticipated, customary jump scares and chilling background images, they are too few and far between, allowing the audience to be lulled into a sense of complacency for too long. This is a small story, centered primarily on a single apartment over the course of a few days, and focuses mostly on Laura and her plight. This calls for an overabundance of scenes of Laura on the phone with either her ex boyfriend, or the detectives working the case. It’s understandably necessary at times in order to give Laura the opportunity to express what she’s feeling to others, but ultimately relies too heavily on these moments, and not enough on the “show, don’t tell” factor that’s so important for horror films. 

The production value and acting are impressive, especially considering the budget they clearly had to work with. The inclusion of Adrienne King, who shines in her role as the hardened detective, is a delightful addition that’s sure to please horror fans. For her part, Dooling is convincing in her portrayal of a woman desperate for answers while in the midst of being constantly scared out of her mind. 

Overall, it feels as though it plods along at too slow of a clip, depending too much on character interactions and not enough on plain ol’ scares. With a run time of just over an hour and ten minutes, it also suffers from the inability to provide proper substance to the story. The Dead Girl in Apartment 03 could have benefitted from an additional half hour or so to fully flesh out the more interesting and horror-centric details. It does manage to wrap things up in an intriguing way, but unless there’s a future sequel to continue the story, it comes just too little, too late.

5 out of 10