The Movie: 1BR
The Director: David Marmor
The Cast: Naomi Grossman, Taylor Nichols, Alan Blumenfeld, Giles Matthey, Andrea Gabriel, Curtis Webster, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Celeste Sully, Jerry Ying, Hailey Giles, Jay Pennick, Clayton Hoff
The Story: Young woman moves into apartment building to escape her family only to find another, more dangerous one hiding in plain sight.
The Review:
This movie is David Marmor's first feature film as a writer and as a director and I have to say I enjoyed the heck out of it. The story is sort of a new twist on how cults recruit people into their ranks and a lot of it is really frightening because this scenario could easily happen to anyone. The story is much more of a psychological horror movie and, for the most part, steers clear of jump scares and graphic violence although when Marmor does decide to go there, the moments are very effective. The cast is pretty spot on as well and especially Taylor Nichols who plays Jerry, the eventual head bad guy who you really believe is capable of some truly despicable things.
The lead role of Sarah is played by Nicole Brydon Bloom who has had a few parts in TV shows and short films and, based on this performance is clearly ready to take center stage in a feature film. She takes on a lot in this movie as her character is tortured both physically and psychologically for most of the movie as part of an indoctrination process. Again, the movie isn't heavy on the graphic violence just be ready for a few moments here and there.
One thing I really liked about Marmor's story is that he knew how to end it in just the right way without going too crazy or over the top. Everything stays within the realm of believability right up until the very end when you realize there might be more going on here than you originally thought which ultimately means we could get to see more at some point and that would be a good thing. 1BR will get under your skin and into your brain in some very disturbing ways and will probably make you never want to go apartment hunting ever again.
1BR is an official selection of the 2019 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.
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