Day 30: The 13th Floor

The 13th Floor is an Australian production filmed in 1988 by Chris Roache. Roache was apparently fresh out of film school and shot this in 24 days. The production was troubled, and the film ultimately went straight to video. It's got intriguing cover art but so does every other movie from this era. And like those most of those films, The 13th Floor is mostly a bore.

The film follows a young girl who witnesses her father murder a young boy by electrocution. 12 years later, the girl runs away from her family to live in an abandoned office space with her two friends. The space is on the 13th floor of the building where her father murdered the young boy 12 years ago. Unknown to her and her friends, the ghost of the boy still haunts the floor. Learning of his daughter's runaway, her father sends hitmen on her trail to make sure she doesn't reveal any details of his crime.

As boring as the plot and overall movie is, there are some redeeming qualities. There is a good atmosphere during the very rare ghost scenes. Some of the kill scenes have some surprising makeup effects for aftermath gore. The acting is all around passable and the direction shows some promise for a first outing. The first hitman character even stands out with his over the top cursing and sadistic remarks.

These are all really brief flashes of promise though as the rest of the film is really just a drag to sit through. There are far too many scenes that have nothing to do with what this movie is really about, a ghost. By the end of the film the supernatural element feels like an afterthought. Isn't that what we paid to see?

Body Count:6

Side Note: Apparently this did really well in rental store in the UK. A silver sales award? The cover art is alright...but not THAT good.