Enter the Room: An Apartment in Lieu of a Family

Harry Waldman’s Enter the Room is a psychological horror where a man’s neurotic, borderline manic dictatorship over his apartment is only the tip of the iceberg. Not triggered so much as it is intensified by the arrival of his brother, Brian’s loss of control seems to defy logic and chronology, existing as a continuous and continuously reforming conception of how to maintain the shape of things. 

First, it is the rent. Jeremy (Rich Holton) has just arrived to stay at Brian’s (Peter Mastne) for two weeks until he can find his own apartment, and the division of rent and utilities immediately becomes a battle that needs to be fought before the bags can be set down. Then it is light from the TV, lights in general, the detergent, chips. It never ends. Jeremy quickly learns to nip every complaint with a swift apology, sincerity essentially insignificant. 

The film could have looked like a sibling drama with one big climactic fight to hash it out, but it assures you from the beginning that this is not only that. It opens with a shot drenched in blue as Brian vibrates with nervous energy, eyes on the door, only to be followed by a CCTV-esque high angle shot in that same blue as Brian rearranges his coffee table in a panic. It is the stuff of a solitary existence, multiplied about twentyfold. We never see outside the apartment, much less leave it behind. Brian lives like its voluntary inmate, spending his days in wait for Jeremy to arrive, to find some new issue to gripe over. 

Unlike many other films of its ilk, Enter the Room does not bother to mask Brian’s loose grip on reality. It is a blunt fact of his character. The only question is how deep it goes and how Jeremy might have to pay for it. Mastne and Holton’s performances, in combination with the pace set by the editing, make for a relationship that is both credibly the product of sharing everything from parents to bathrooms and the portent of something awful about to happen. 

The most interesting thing about the film is how it weaves its rough, indie look with a genuine claim to substance. As less and less of the apartment behaves according to his desire, Brian finds himself coming undone in dangerously progressive strides. Blue gives way to red and the frame begins to resemble a painted nightmare. (Although it should probably require an epileptic seizure risk warning.)

The trouble perhaps, is that it is only Jeremy who is around to mess up Brian’s apartment, when he really wants the whole family. 

Watch Enter the Room Short Film Review