Directed by Kurtis Spieler, “The Dead Girl in Apartment 03” is a pretty good horror story that only becomes presentable for its creepy scores and dark cinematography. However, we see many familiar faces in the film, but whether their performances measure up is debatable. This story is about the survival of a dead girl’s roommate, Laura, whose bedroom is an open place for disembodied spirits. Don’t expect jumpscares, but the dark and demonic atmosphere can give you a scary experience. But the question is, who are these spirits? What was even the roommate’s cause of death?
Spoilers ahead
How did Elizabeth die?
“The Dead Girl in Apartment 03” begins with a weird thriller where we see a guy (Bryan Manley Davis) being interrogated, and he counterattacks the cop with a question if he believes in ghosts. And the scene shifts to Laura’s (Laura Dooling) house, where she is interrupted by a scratching noise. Removing her headphones, she goes to see where her roommate, Elizabeth, is. But after opening the door, she sees something terrible. And here are the cops investigating the death of her roommate Elizabeth, which leaves Laura in shock. We see Elizabeth’s corpse with her mouth wide open and her eyes piercing. Looks like she saw something horrible just before she died. But what could it be? Wanting to know the answer to the question, the cops ask Laura about Elizabeth’s last name, but Laura spells it by mistake, causing Detective Cop Richard (Adrienne King) to doubt her relationship with her roommate. But Laura clarifies that they weren’t that close; she had just moved here a few months ago from Masechusates, and she contacted Elizabeth through an ad about her finding roommates, and that’s how they became roommates. She even says she saw her a few days ago. The female cop poked fun at the perks of living in New York. The cops continue the questioning and Laura explains that even though they were roommates, they barely saw each other because one of them had different shifts. Asked about the victim’s relatives, Laura tells the cops that her roommate had a loving and caring boyfriend, who was a bit obsessed with her. Richard assumes that Elizabeth may have died two days before. Finding no trauma and no injuries to her body, the cops suspect that Elizabeth might have had an epileptic seizure as her corpse is left open-mouthed. But it is difficult to declare anything before an autopsy. The other cop, Millar, who has a bit of an interest in Laura, gives her a card for housekeeping and her number if she needs to stay somewhere else for the night.
Later in the car, Richard warns Millar not to get emotionally involved with any of the girls in the case, as they are all suspects, and they might turn out to be the culprit in the end, but Millar confidently denies it. that Laura doesn’t look like a criminal.
Later, we see Laura getting angry and calling her mother. She says how scared she is to think that her dead roommate, Elizabeth, was there for an entire day or two, and Laura unknowingly passed by her room. She hangs up and finally musters up the courage to stay there for the night, as she didn’t feel safe contacting that cop, so she calls the cleaning service, and the cleaning service proves unfaithful for not showing up. Meanwhile, just behind Laura, we see someone standing with a broken and presumably bleeding posture. The person we saw behind Laura could be the ghost of Elizabeth, which could have chilled our backs.
The suspense of the story continues, and we see Laura herself cleaning the floor where Elizabeth’s body lies. And side by side we see Richard warning Millar not to get involved with any of the girls in the case. She even shares many strange experiences in her work regarding this issue. Meanwhile, we see Laura calling her ex-boyfriend Christian (Bryan Manley Davis), who can’t speak at the time because he’s at a party. But the film’s dark undertone and chilling background music take the tension out of the story, and we understand there’s an incorporeal presence in Laura’s room.
The night goes on, and Laura finds herself increasingly alone and scared, so she tells Christian everything over the phone, asking him to come over, but he refuses as they have broken up. This time, as Laura is wracked with fear, we see a more terrifying figure that resembles Elizabeth’s corpse. Finally, a helpless Laura calls Miller and reports that she heard scratching coming from Elizabeth’s room. When Miller and Detective Richard arrive, Laura lets them into Elizabeth’s room and they find scratches behind the door. But since there are still no such suspicions, the police come out of her house. Here in the car, Richard informs Miller that Elizabeth’s autopsy report shows no signs of trauma, injury, disease or any type of poison, which makes our idea clearer than in the death of Elizabeth, no humans are involved.
‘The Dead Girl in Apartment 03’ Ending Explained: What’s in Elizabeth’s Room?
By the time we see Laura and Christian, they’re actually not over each other as he keeps calling her back and talking about their breakup, but suddenly she hears a knock on the door. She discovers that it is Elizabeth’s boyfriend, Derek. When Derek wants to come in, we already don’t like his presence. His disturbing existence and the way he asked Laura about the scratching noise made her uncomfortable. Although it seems quite natural for a lover to talk about the death of his beloved, Derek’s ghostly gaze would make you feel a little uneasy. Laura, under the pretense of going to the bathroom, calls Millar to talk about Derek, but he assures her that there is nothing for him to worry about, and that she can just tell him to leave. And she has to when she finds Derek talking in Elizabeth’s room, saying he’s sorry and he’ll fix everything. Laura finds it weird at this point and asks him to leave. But now she has to make a dumber decision to pretend she’s smart. She goes to her dead roommate’s room to look for something that could help the cops. As Elizabeth’s bedroom is shown, it already gives off a dark, demonic vibe due to the red lighting. Inside the room we also find strange things that prove that she was in satanic cults or was a member of them. Like, a book drawn in a pentagram, Satan’s wings on the wall, creepy dolls, and weird symbols drawn on her floor, it all gives off the aura of her as a Satan worshiper. Not just the viewers, but Laura understands too, and she sends the image of the symbol she captured on her phone to Christian, asking him about it, but he has no idea either.
Therefore, when Laura finally gets up to do some more research, the spirit enters her room and turns off the light. Frightened, Laura turns on a flashlight and calls Christian, and with his encouragement, she goes down to the basement to check the meter box. But there we see a demon kept in a room just behind Laura. Meanwhile, on Google, Christian finds what the symbol indicates, and he says that the symbol is used to summon the demon named Myzraak, who gives love and obsession to the person you want to be with, but it is dangerous. Immediately, Christian calls Laura and leaves her a voicemail about the danger, but it looks like Myzraak is already there behind him.
Back here, we see Laura panting hard and finding her way to sort it all out. Upon entering her room, she sees Elizabeth’s creepy dolls and a deer skull masked man inside her room. When she is afraid, Laura asks him to leave her. She even finds Elizabeth’s ghost behind her. We finally see that the masked man is Derek, which we’ve sensed before. Derek ties Laura with a chair on Myzraak’s symbol and confesses the truth. He says it was Elizabeth who summoned the demon to make Derek obsessed with her, which is granted, but as an offering, the demon took Elizabeth’s life. Now Derek, who is intensely obsessed with his dead girlfriend, wants to offer Laura’s body to bring her back. As he proceeds to stab Laura, from behind Detective Millar shoots him to save her, but ultimately turns out to complete the offering ritual for the demon. And now we see Laura becoming Elizabeth. It looks like Richard’s warning against Laura is coming true, but unfortunately Millar might not be alive to share this experience with anyone in the future.
But what happens to Christian? It is unknown how the demon finds its victim, but Christian is seen being questioned by the cops. The demon even attacks him while standing right behind his back. But one can still wonder why the demon attacked Christian. Was it Laura’s inner desire to make him obsessed with her, or in searching for the symbols, Christian unknowingly sets out to get his ex-girlfriend back? It can be many things. But unfortunately, it’s the end.
Conclusive review
The film begins with the potential to scare audiences but ultimately fails to convey even a somewhat wistful feeling. Due to the lack of puzzles and mysteries, the film remains just an attempt to make a good horror story. But “The Dead Girl in Apartment 03” does well with its odd background score and dark undertones in the cinematography. However, the film’s budget was very low, so it almost continued as a one-location film. It doesn’t seem fair to say if this movie is a waste of time, but in the end, it still doesn’t make you think at all about what you usually expect from a good horror movie.
“The Dead Girl in Apartment 03” is a 2022 drama horror film directed by Kurtis Spieler.
