Zimmer 205 (4 Stars)

This German horror film, made in 2011, is a remake of the 2007 Danish film "Kollegiet". I've read that Sam Raimi intends to make an English version of the film. Any film that's inspired two foreign language remakes must be excellent in itself, so I want to get my hands on the original Danish film.

The main character, shown in the picture above, is Katrin Nadolny. The film opens with her arrival as a first year student at the University of Erfurt to study Psychology. She takes up residence in the student accommodation building, a typical ugly brutalist East German building. I doubt the Danish version featured architecture so appropriate to the story. Katrin moves into room 205, which is the name of the film. When she tells her fellow students the room number they all act uneasily. The room was previously occupied by a student called Annika, who vanished suddenly, and the room has been empty ever since. Officially she's classed as missing, but everyone thinks she's dead.

Over the following few weeks students die. In all the cases Katrin was the last one to see them alive. The students are quick to accuse Katrin of murder, and soon the police suspect her as well. Katrin is having visions of Annika and thinks she is somehow taking revenge for something that happened to her in the room.

This is a very well made horror film. Even though it's a German horror story based on a Danish film, the style is very Japanese. Maybe after the Hollywood remake has been released a Japanese director like Hideo Nakata will jump on it and film it in Japanese.

I'm also very impressed by the acting of Jennifer Ulrich as Katrin. I checked IMDB and found that she's in a few films in my collection, but I've only really noticed her in "We are the night". Maybe I should go back and rewatch the other films.