Roommates (aka D-day) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: Zany antics ensue at an all-girls school that is, I guess, haunted...maybe...kinda...

Review: It may have taken me, something like, 3 years to finish, but here is the last movie from the "4 Horror Tales" series. If you're in need of a reminder, that quartet involved "February 29," "Dark Forest of Death," and "Forbidden Floor." In a nutshell: these films were terrible with the exception of "February 29." Although I wouldn't consider "Roommates" to be as over the top stupid as "Dark Forest of Death," it is the most boring entry of the four films. In fact, this movie is sheer torture to sit through, because absolutely nothing happens until the last 10 minutes. Realistically, they had enough material to fill an episode of the Korean Twilight Zone. The rest of the running time is pure, unadulterated shenanigans!

The story focuses on four particular girls who become--you guessed it--roommates at some private, college prep school. You have the bitch, the smart one, the dorky one, and the narrator serving as the every girl; gotta go with the dorky one personally. The point of the school is to offer a second chance to people who didn't get into college or whatever. To give you an idea...the smart girl could have gone to college but apparently didn't have high enough grades to get into the best university. The school is treated like a prison where you have no belongings and are intended to go to class and study from 6 AM to, roughly, 9 PM. Oh fuck that shit! I'd have to be the only guy in this all-girl school to put up with that torture. But, then again, the whole point of this school is to free yourself from "desires." I will say this, however, at least there weren't any of those weird "friendships" I usually see in Korean horror; the girls appeared relatively normal for the most part.

The vast majority of the film shows us the mundane activities of the girls coping with the school year as we count down to "D-day;" D-day is supposed to signify the final test to get into whatever college they're striving toward. Every 20 minutes or so the movie remembers the genre is horror, and we get a nonsensical shot of a ghost (or a vision of the future?). None of the characters even react to the ghosts yet they're screaming from a hamster? I don't understand what the movie is trying to imply is happening with the school's backstory. Supposedly there was a massacre and the school burned down some time earlier, but it's never fully explained. By the film's end, the same exact scenario unravels again for no discernible reason. I guess you could claim the ghosts were responsible, but that would be a stretch. There is also very little buildup to the climax--it just comes out of the blue--as if the writer had no idea how to tell this tale in a competent manner. The closing scene shows the narrator, as the lone survivor, wanting to kill herself for, yet again, no discernible reason. Dude, I have no idea what the hell was happening.

To sum it up: this felt like a drama with small bits of supernatural elements thrown in to widen the market for the film. Almost nothing happens in the story as nonessential events unfold in the slowest and most boring way imaginable. The girls are somewhat decent characters, but they don't have any real moments to shine and die quite suddenly. More so, their struggles at the school go nowhere with no twists or character developments. Even the background characters appear shady for the sake of being weird despite never having their stories amount to anything of worth. Seriously, there was so little material here I can't believe they went ahead with trying to make a feature-length picture. Once more, I read a few bullshit reviews trying to make this film sound good. Amusing. Believe me, if you have the slightest comprehension of what constitutes a scare, you will not find any here.

Notable Moment: When the smart one manages to kill the entire school population. How the hell does one little girl with a knife slaughter like 50+ people?! Nobody could overpower her? No group of people could overpower her?

Final Rating: 4/10