Corridor
is one of those movies everyone can and will relate to. We’ve all
fallen for the cute girl in the apartment above ours and we’ve all
unintentionally gotten involved in their personal crises and we’ve all
found ourselves being harassed and/or stalked by her boyfriend. We’ve
all been there.
If
the basic “Man Vs. Psychotic Boyfriend” synopsis sounds like something
you’ve seen one thousand times before, well, that’s because it is. A
cursory glance does Corridor
no favors, especially when it’s booked against post-apocalyptic vampire
adventures and movies where Donnie Yen is deflating human skulls for
your amusement. A shame, since Corridor
makes up for its generic set-up and occasional technical shoddiness by
being a damn good movie, an intimate, tense thriller that realizes that
there is nothing scarier than not feeling safe in your own home,
especially when the man behind your non-safety is a very angry Peter
Stormare.
But
there’s more going on here beyond the cat-and-mouse antics of the plot.
Frank (Emile Johnsen) is not the most likable of protagonists. He’s
cold and stuck-up, a medical student whose only concerns are passing his
exams and going home to a quiet apartment to study for future exams. He
doesn’t talk to his classmates, he turns down opportunities to study
with others and he’s not opposed to yelling at small children, so it’s
not a surprise that he attempts to remain passive when the lovely Lotte
(Ilva Gallon) seems to be in danger of a death by Stormare.
Writer/directors
Johan Lundborg and Johan Storm spend the first half of film setting up a
delicate balancing act: we like Frank enough to not want to see him
gutted but he’s enough of an ass that no one, not his fellow students,
not his neighbors and not even the cops, will come to his aid. Corridor is a scary film not because Frank is alone in his apartment but because Frank is alone in the world. Corridor
is a story of isolation, about how we need other human beings. We need
companionship. We need friends. We need a buddy to call up when a crazy
man is leaving intimidating messages on your phone and banging on your
door at two in the morning.
Corridor
is a small film, the kind of low-key, audience pleaser that not enough
people make anymore. There is nothing high concept going on here, just a
solid story driven by good actors and a final act that that’s intense
because of the stakes but hilarious thanks to a screwball comedy level
of intricacy. Corridor is meat and potatoes filmmaking at its very best.
8 out of 10
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