Product Description

Wanting a fresh start, Katrine moves into a university dormitory but quickly learns the myth about a ghost of a former resident who was killed. The myth soon becomes a terrifying reality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38102 in DVD
• Brand: LIONS GATE HOME ENT.
• Released on: 2008-10-14
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Danish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 91 minutes

Customer Reviews

A ghost story minus the scares
Along with The Substitute, Room 205 is a Danish import carrying the Ghost House Underground banner. Unlike The Substitute though, Room 205 is a tedious bore that fails to deliver, and ends up being a ghost story minus the scares. The gorgeous Neel Rønholt (who is a dead ringer for erotic scream queen Erin Brown, AKA Misty Mundae) stars as a newly moved in college student that soon learns the last inhabitant of her dorm room met a tragic and grisly demise. Her spirit is restless, and it isn't long before her mates start getting picked off one by one. It's nothing we haven't seen or heard before, but Room 205 at least starts out promising before getting caught up in mellowdrama. Adding insult to injury is the fact that Room 205 is just plain boring for almost 2/3's of its running time. Though it does get better during the last third of the film, Room 205 still ends up being a mostly boring disappointment. Still, you could always do much worse horror wise, and Room 205 is worth a look for ghost story fans, just don't expect too much out of it.

Room For Improvement
ROOM 205 baffled me. There is so much not to like about it. For instance, the entire movie is dubbed, and by voice-actors who sound like they've been chugging Dramamine. The plot mainly concerns a girl named Katrine who has just moved into a dormitory in Copenhagen. Her roommates are intrusive and manipulative jerks whom she befriends immediately by mostly standing around and grinning. It took me a while to realize that they are supposed to be youngish college students (hence the bizarre clique mentality they all share), because none of them look like they're any younger than 35. Their unofficial leader is the shrewish Sanne (pronounced like "Sane? Uhhhhh..."), who does not suffer from the typically human need to blink. Sanne kinda-sorta befriends Katrine (this is up for debate), but then Katrine goes and has harried hallway sex with Sanne's ex. Sanne, of course, goes on the warpath, and Katrine is suddenly foisted out of the clique. She joins Rolf, who was the last roommate before her. In every scene, Rolf appears to have just woken from a nap; he's the sickliest-looking man in Denmark.

At some point during the course of an ubelievably loud dormitory rave, a ghost is awakened.

The characters in this film are so confusing that they are almost hypnotic. Katrine's tendency to never defend herself or respond to common conversational comments is simultaneously off-putting and admirable. Secondary characters appear out of nowhere whenever a few extra bodies are required, but they contribute only as much to the action as your standard piece of scenery.

And yet, I still kinda liked it.

Ignoring for the moment that I am a sucker for really bad movies, the things this film did superbly were the horror moments. When it needs to be, the film is legitimately scary. The ghost and her mirror world are almost as engrossing as the rest of the movie's awkward awfulness. Much is accomplished with a few subtle jump cuts and lighting tricks, and there are few to no of the cheap-shot false-scares that movies like these usually haul out by the truckload.

I've never seen any of his other works (they include titles like "Bag Kameraet Pa Hotel Pandemonium" and "Legekammeraten"), but I give dirctor Martin Barnewitz props for doing some interesting work with Jannik Tai Mosholt's inane script. It may be slow and weird, but ROOM 205 is also kind of addictive. And if it doesn't make you jump, odds are good it will at least make you laugh.

Just the Facts--Room 205
In order to review the movie Room 205, I have to start with with the DVD cover itself. In the bottemish left hand side [...] says that Room 205 is a 'Fast-paced supernatural teen slasher'. Several problems with this: None of the charecters in this movie are teenagers, more like late twenties to mid thirties. Second, to call this a slasher flick is insulting to Halloween, Friday then Thirteenth, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc. This movie is more in the class of Pulse, Rest Stop, and Boogeyman. The death scenes were okay I suppose. I actually liked how the charec ter got whoooshed back into a glass case and she bled to death. The elevator scence had been done many times. Finally, the ending was a real bummer. I am still confused as what took place. Girls gone, boys had tongue ripped out? and girl leaves? Despite all this, it was a pretty good movie for 91 minutes.