1BR

1BR Movie Review

Sarah (Nicole Brydon Bloom) thinks she has found the perfect one bedroom apartment--what she doesn't know, however, is being a part of this complex community means more than saying hello as you awkwardly pass your neighbor. For whatever reason, I seem to be stumbling across these cult community movies lately (The Sacrament and Midsommar are examples)--with those two movies, I knew going in what to expect, but with 1BR, which my girlfriend chose from Netflix, I wasn't sure what I was getting into. Of course, as soon as you see everybody at the apartment complex being nice and helpful to each other, you know there must be something odd going on.

This has cult written all over it

This movie does a good job building tension--what starts as a slow-burn approach turns up the intensity quickly in a fairly unsettling scene (poor cat), but unfortunately, it fails to hold this tension, and the scares all but disappear as the story unravels. Once Sarah learns what is happening, the movie goes into cruise control, and we crawl to the finish (more on that later). Bloom does a decent job with her role, and the rest of the cast is fair as well--there are no fantastic performances, but none that are horrible either. While there is not a lot of blood and guts, the violent scenes are certainly ones that will grab your attention. I would have liked to have seen more development with the characters who were already a part of the community, but no such luck. The action finally picks back up when Sarah inevitably attempts her escape--the final ten minutes are enough to bring the movie up a point, and the final scene is quite memorable. If you find yourself scrolling through Netflix and come across this movie, give it a shot--you can certainly do worse on that streaming service. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 6

1BR Movie Trailer