I had no idea what to expect from "Gnaw" (aka "Apartment 212"), aside from it being a horror movie. Which, incidentally, was also the sole reason for me picking the movie up and deciding to give it a view.
While writers Jim Brennan, Haylar Garcia and Kathryn Gould did manage to put together an interesting enough story, then it should be said that this movie is rather slow paced at the helm of director Haylar Garcia, for better or worse. Sure, the movie was gradually setting up the atmosphere and introducing the characters, but it just took way, way too long in doing so, and the movie suffered from that, because nothing much happened throughout the first hour of the movie.
With that being said, don't get me wrong. Sure, it was somewhat of a drag and an ordeal to sit through the first hour with so little happening, but the last 30 minutes or so of the movie, well, see now that is where it got interesting and started to really pick up the pace. Just a shame it took an hour to get there. The last 30 minutes of the movie luckily managed to steer the sinking movie back on track and salvage it enough to pull it out of the generic and mundane highway, to the point where it actually was worthwhile watching.
While I can't claim to be overly familiar with Penelope Mitchell (playing Jennifer in "Gnaw"), then I must admit that she really handled the lead role quite well and lifted the movie quite nicely with her performance.
"Gnaw" is frightfully devoid of scary things actually. While it spent an hour setting the atmosphere, there was hardly nothing spooky or scary about that whole hour - aside from how long it took director Haylar Garcia to do so. And while the last 30 minutes of the movie sure was a wakening up call for the movie, it hardly was laced with much of anything scary.
I will say that the creature design in the movie was actually quite good, and I loved the way the creature looked. Just a shame that it had so little on-screen time. But the special effects and CGI team definitely also lifted up the movie quite a way with their efforts, getting the movie lifted out of the mediocre gutter.
All in all, a slow-paced movie that eventually becomes worthwhile watching, but hardly a horror classic in any way. And this is really not the type of movie that you will watch more than once, because there just isn't enough contents to the storyline to support multiple viewings.
