Home is where the heart-stopping horror is in Travis Stevens’ fantastic directorial debut Girl on the Third Floor. The new film puts a DIY spin on the haunted house genre, with an energetic and darkly comic style that evokes a weird alternate reality in which Sam Raimi directed The Money Pit.
Phil Brooks, better known to wrestling fans as C.M. Punk, makes his acting debut as Don Koch, a disgraced investor who now finds himself alone in a dilapidated house with nothing but a dog, a cooler full of beers and a tool belt. He plans to fix this fixer upper up himself before his pregnant wife, Liz (Trieste Kelly Dunn, Banshee) moves in, but it’s easier said than done.
The house is falling apart. There walls are soggy with black goo. Milky substances ooze from the shower heads and electrical sockets. The doorbell sounds like a death rattle. The ceilings are death traps. And for some reason marbles keep rolling around from out of nowhere; never mind where they came from, or who could be throwing them.
Most of Girl on the Third Floor is dedicated to Don haplessly trying to make something out of this mess, falling prey to physical comedy and, possibly, supernatural hecklers. Imagine Bruce Campbell trying to actually repair that cabin in Evil Dead 2 and you’ve got some idea what of Don is in for. Actually, Bruce Campbell is exactly the actor Brooks evokes throughout the film: a likable boob who makes terrible mistakes and pays for them but keeps trudging along anyway.
But there’s more going on in Girl on the Third Floor. Don is repeatedly visited by a kindly pastor, Ellie (Karen Woditsch) from the church across the street, who’s eager to talk but never wants to go inside. And then of course there’s his alluring neighbor Sarah (Sarah Yates), who is all too eager to help him with his handiwork, even into the wee hours of the night. As Don learns more about the house and his community, and as he falls back on old and unhealthy habits, he gradually falls deeper and deeper into a supernatural hole, and he probably isn’t getting out.
Travis Stevens’ script, based on a story by Paul Johnston and Ben Parker, cleverly weaves exposition into scenes of comedy and gross out horror. The filmmaker knows when to let Brooks carry the film, when to interject with whimsical angles, and when to finally let some new information slip. It’s an unusually structured but organic supernatural thriller, which crescendoes into shocking and grotesque acts of violence, and then – daringly – takes a hard right turn and keeps going, because Girl on the Third Floor isn’t out of ideas yet.
It’s impressive how Stevens and cinematographer Scott Thiele keep Girl on the Third Floor vibrant, with imagery that’s arch and funny and lures us into a false sense of safety. The camerawork isn’t as manic as you might find in a Sam Raimi production but it’s just as energetically and specifically framed. And the way our hero devolves from a lovable comedy star into a character who, we gradually realize, we’d probably despise under any other circumstances is natural and effective.
Meanwhile, Sarah Yates turns in an impressive performance as a young woman who could be the nicest neighbor in the world or could be a femme fatale, or could be even worse. The actor understands that she’s representing Don’s repressed libido as much as she is playing a real person, and balances that tricky dynamic with aplomb. And Trieste Kelly Dunn, who doesn’t have many opportunities to shine until the third act, winds up walking away with the movie by putting a new perspective on the story at just the right time.
And then, of course, there’s the house. What a beautiful and disgusting house. Production designers Courtney and Hillary Andujar (Body at Brighton Rock) craft that rare haunted house that’s just as creepy with the sun shining through the open windows as it is in the dead of night. The opening credits alone are just a montage showing off their attention to creepy little details. And as the environment transforms, and reveals repulsive secrets, their efforts become all the more impressive.
Girl on the Third Floor overextends itself a bit in the final act, with a few ham-fisted bits of exposition and a denouement that’s creepy but doesn’t make much sense. Those issues don’t detract from the rest of the film, thank goodness, because most of Girl on the Third Floor is thrilling, distinctive, funny, scary, disturbing and smart. It should not be missed.
