Apartment 143 (2011) not to be confused with Apartment 143B, the residence of Hubert Cumberdale. So, yet another found footage movie. Oh goody. Even better this movie is about strange ghostly goings on. Could it be that this movie was inspired by another movie, Paranormal Activity (2007) I am looking at you! A ridiculously awful movie that was built up by people who don't usually watch horror movies. Yes I didn't care for Paranormal Activity and I don't much care for Apartment 143 either.
The movie starts quite competently, and for the first 30 minutes the movie builds a foundation. I can suspend my disbelief, the setting, the acting is good enough. The plot is the usual hunted house scenario, allbeit this is an apartment. A team of investigators are called in to help a strugglimg family. A father, and his two children have been experiencing supernatural phenomena since their mother died in a car crash. The difference in this case is that the investigation team explain it with "science". So of course they put up cameras and various other "scientific" devices to help them explain what has been happening. The rest of the movie is their attempt to understand what is occuring as events escalate.
As I said previously this movie spends the first 30 minutes approximately building a foundation, and then promptly smashes it to pieces. It was almost as if they ran out of gas and just said, screw it lets just do lots of crazy stuff and hope for the best. The problem is we have seen the supernatural occurrences in countless movies. Things move, kettles levitate, doors slam and it is as if they had a list of cliched movie events and ticked them one by one. Some of the special effects are quite well done but the movie is just so ridiculous that it destroys any impact they might have.
Perhaps the least convincing element of the movie is it's attempt to bring a scientific explanation to events. Everything is so contrived, and as a result we get long clunky scenes involving how they are using science. There are no supernatural events paraphrasing one of the characters. Really? Even though they captured a ghostly image, doors slamming, and a kettle that levitates? The explanation for this I will not reveal as I don't want to spoil the movie but it is nonsensical. A shame really as the movie had potential.
3 out of 10
Summary: if you are the sort of horror movie fan that likes Paranormal Activity then you will probably like this movie, otherwise avoid it.