Apartment 1303

2007 –

Japan –

94 mins

IMDB
4.7

Rotten Tomatoes
18%

Letterboxd
2.7

Apartment 1303 follows a young woman who moves into a seemingly ordinary apartment but soon encounters strange, terrifying occurrences. As the dark history of previous tenants unfolds, she discovers the apartment is haunted by a vengeful spirit, leading to a deadly confrontation.

Cast: Noriko Nakagoshi, Arata Furuta, Eriko Hatsune, Yuka Itaya, Naoko Ohtani, Akira Fukada

Genre(s): Horror

Director(s): Ataru Oikawa

Writer(s): Ataru Oikawa, Kei Ôishi, Takamasa Sato

Review

*may contain spoilers

Apartment 1303 is a Japanese horror film directed by Ataru Oikawa, based on a novel by Kei Oishi. It follows a simple but creepy setup. A series of young women move into the same apartment, and all end up falling to their deaths from the balcony. The police call it suicide, but one sister, Mariko, refuses to believe it and starts digging into the dark past of apartment 1303.

The story feels familiar to anyone who has seen The Ring or The Grudge. It has the same kind of ghost, a vengeful spirit born from anger and tragedy, and the same idea of a curse that repeats itself. Still, it manages to keep some moments of real tension. One early death scene, with a woman falling headfirst from the balcony, is both shocking and well done.

Mariko’s search for the truth gives the film some emotional weight. Her sister’s death feels personal, and her grief keeps the story grounded. Noriko Nakagoshi does a good job in the lead, showing both fear and determination. The scenes where Mariko gets a phone call from her dead sister are among the film’s best.

What hurts the movie most is that it never finds its own voice. It borrows too much from better-known horror films, and some of the effects look cheap. The ghostly figures appear with basic dissolves, and the green screen work during the falls looks fake. The pacing also slows down in the middle, with too much time spent on side characters and a dull mother-daughter subplot.

Still, the movie has some charm for fans of old-school Japanese horror. It’s eerie rather than gory, and it builds slow tension instead of jump scares. The film also touches on guilt and broken family ties, which gives it a little more depth than a simple haunted house story.

For me, Apartment 1303 is not a standout in the J-horror genre, but it’s not a failure either. It delivers a few chills and a decent mystery, even if most of it feels like you’ve already seen it before. If you’re new to Japanese ghost stories, it’s a fair place to start. But if you’ve already seen The Ring or The Grudge, you might feel like you’ve already lived in this haunted apartment before.

– written by sankalp