Arni has just moved into a boarding house, and already she freaks
almost everybody out because she's the splitting image of Luisa, a girl
who was stabbed to death here not too long ago, and apparently, the spirit
of Luisa is still haunting the hallways. Especially the owner of the
boarding house is freaked out by Arni's uncanny resemblance to the dead
girl, while her son Mas soon shows a definite interest in Arni. Arni starts
having bad dreams about being stabbed and the like, dreams that eventually
lead her to investigate the whole murder. Soon, she comes up with quite a
few suspects, like the creepy neighbours who seem to be digging graves in
their garden every night, or scheming Yuri, who has the room next to hers
and who always acts a bit too friendly. It's Yuri too, who gives Arni a
beautiful dress to wear on a date with Mas, a dress that once belonged to
Luisa - and when Arni's mother sees her in the dress, she goes bonkers
sneaks into her room to stab her. Fortunately though, Arni survives the
ordeal and as a thank you for solving the case, she gets to keep Mas. And
Yuri? She has given Arni the dress because Luisa's spirit made her to to
have her murder solved. Now that justice is been done, the spirit leaves
this plane of existence and moves on. If one was very nice, one
could call Sebuah Kamar a supernatural version of Roman Polanski's The
Tenant with traces of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window.
However, this would make the film sound almost too interesting, because
truth to be told, Sebuah Kamar is one of the most boring horror
movies ever brought to celluloid, the film is pretty much atmosphere-free,
there is next to no action, the narrative buildup is slow, and tension and
suspense are nowhere to be found. Add to this a total lack of directorial
elegance and a very mediocre cast of actors and you are left with a
supernatural murder mystery where you don't care in the least about the
resolution but are happy when it arrives just because that means the film
is over.
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