Written and directed by Brandon Rice, actor Cory King moves into a hotel for semi-successful actors, producers, and directors. The longer he stays, the more he notices things around him have never been what they seemed. Starring: Adam Joseph Turner, Timothy J. Cox, Michael Carrino, Jennifer Rizzi Horvath, Alyssa Wexler and Alex DeCourville.
With motels having such transient, temporary, often dingy or depressive qualities, blended with that idea of being used and abused for anonymity and escape, they make for excellent locations to mess with reality. The isolation and grit provide a great place to lose your grip with reality, to become stuck in a loop, which What Lives in Room 214? makes good use of. It’s a familiar tone, one that is quietly unhinged, gradually deteriorating and has an edge of mystery and cult.
In some respects, it’s a nicely simple concept, relying upon on that mystery and making the audience question reality to keep them glued in. You could however also interpret the different facets to What Lives in Room 214? as metaphors for the experiences of working within the entertainment industry. Particularly when it comes to the impact a fragment of success can have on someone’s psyche and aptly warp their perception of reality. Although aiming for audiences to necessarily seek out those layers, beyond the classic price of fame, is potentially a lofty goal.
Those intriguing, mysterious layers work well initially, but as the film enters its latter half, it can become somewhat performative. It loses its momentum and misses the opportunity to truly develop the backstory or motivations behind the story, and the motel. It struggles to find its persona in those moments, and feels slightly like its scrambling, before it settles in for its final farewell.
The first half of What Lives in Room 214? is much stronger, and that’s in no small part thanks to Timothy J. Cox. The scenes where Cox stars opposite Adam Joseph Turner really open up the film’s eerie tone, Turner brings a naivety while Cox adds an unknown element, making it hard to nail down who his character really is. Turner does a nice job of capturing that idea of being swallowed up by a modicum of success, there’s a strong desperation and loneliness to it. While Cox gives him a friendly ear to open up, while leaving audiences wondering what he’s getting out of it.
Brandon Rice’s direction keeps close to his characters to lean into that sense of being trapped, it’s not quite claustrophobic, but adjacent to it. Using that feel of the same faces, same places repeating as the ground slips from beneath Cory (Adam Joseph Turner). The movie review scene from early on was a great, imaginative choice which adds strongly to the cult air of the film, it has a subtly disturbing tone and it would have been great to see more like that throughout. The cinematography and sound work can feel somewhat lacking. The opening scene in particularly feels like its presence could have been strongly boosted by a more impactful score, to drive home the weight of that introduction.
What Lives in Room 214? has good intentions and starts out well but ultimately loses its way. It has some solid ingredients, the setting, the tone and the performances are ticking the right boxes, but its story runs out of steam. The latter scenes feel disconnected from the rest of the film and miss the mark on making a definitive impression. Its personality felt consistent and strong in the earlier scenes but became rushed and indecisive as the film reached its end. It held some interesting potential, it simply couldn’t fully find its footing.
