Girl on the Third Floor

Watched this at the SXSW and did not know what to expect. Turned out to be a quite entertaining horror flick, directed by Tavis Stevens. Don Jon, an ex-con with a criminal past and some alcohol issues (a delightful performance from former WWE wrestler "CM Punk") bought a house in the Chicago suburbs for himself and his 8-month pregnant successful wife (Trieste Kelly Dunn). He wants to rebuild the house single-handedly while his wife stays in town. His efforts to renovate the house involve some really funny scenes, CM Punk has a great talent for physical humour. While working and sleeping in the house, some strange things happen, glass balls roll over the floors, eerie noises occur, a young girls shows up, trying to seduce Don Jon, and the neighbouring church's pastor seems to know more about the house than she tells. I really liked this movie, since it is a fresh mix of haunted house, horror, slasher, family drama, and comedy--and jumping back and forth between the genres plays nicely with the audience's expectations. Despite some shortcomings in the writing, the actors, and the camerawork are above average. Also the sound design was very skilful.

I watched this movie based on the reviews from rotten tomatoes and the good reviews here....i made a mistake.

The movie was poorly acted and scripted. I don't care as much when a character makes dumb decisions. We live in a world where people make odd choices. The interactions were cheesy because of the script and terrible acting by the main lead. He was bad, really bad. Felt like he was doing a bad Bruce Campbell impersonation.

The story itself was ok. If you can look past the acting and bad dialogue, give it a shot.

Yes its another B horror flick and somewhat predictable, but I was drawn in by the camera work, effective use of sound and the unique choice of leading man. The supporting cast works well together, are entertaining, plus there are a few surprises as we move through the plot and home reno. My only question with so many of these haunted house movies is why don't these people ever get a home inspection before they buy?

The story follows CM Punk as he tries to renovate his strange century plus old house. Strange encounters occur, both within the home and with neighbors and townfolks, which brings me to my biggest issue. Punk/Don has several strange encounters in which the conversations make little sense. Per example, he meets a barkeep in a completely empty bar, who asks him if he is "queer", then states strait men don't do well in his home. The questions come out of no where and Punk/Don never follows up with inquiry like a normal human. The pastor neighbor also makes constant allusions to oddities, clearly indicating town members know something about the house, and yet nobody does what real humans would do and push for further questioning. This all culminates with a dubious explanation at the end that only leads to more questions and non sense. It almost feels like large parts of dialogue were cut from the film that would help it feel less choppy. Ultimately, I think Punk offered a good performance. Some of the imagery was creepy and interesting. I felt it could have been quite good if the story was ironed out.

Girl On The Third Floor is the typical average horror movie. One that no-one will ever remember as the story is just too weak. It's just not that interesting to watch. Haunted houses, let's be honest it has been done before, and in this case much better. The acting wasn't terrible but with a mediocre story it will not change anything to the quality of the movie. The horror moments were also not really scary, nor disgusting if you're more into slashers. Not very impressed by this one.