FilmRPsychological Survival

Apartment Zero1989

Name: Apartment Zero
Genre: Psychological, Survival
Released: 1989-09-02
Rating: 6.9

Directed by Martin Donovan

6.9

Crypt Score

Blended from 3 sources

IMDb 6.8Rotten Tomatoes 74%TMDB 6.7

✍ Review

On the charts

#4·Top Horror Movies of 1989

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Year

1989

Runtime

124 min

Box Office

Budget

$4,000,000

Revenue (worldwide)

$670,774

Domestic

$1,267,578

🏆 5 wins & 1 nomination

The premise

In a rundown area of Buenos Aires, at the dawn of the 1980s, Adrian LeDuc owns both a struggling movie theater and a shabby apartment building filled with eccentric, squabbling tenants. To make ends meet, Adrian takes in a roommate, Jack Carney, but soon begins to suspect that the quiet American is responsible for a series of political assassinations that are rocking the city.

Horror Vault's take

In the crumbling cinemas and cramped apartments of early-1980s Buenos Aires, a socially isolated film-house owner takes in a charming American stranger to save himself from financial ruin — and begins to wonder whether he has invited something truly dangerous into his life. As political assassinations ripple through the city, the line between fascination and fear blurs in increasingly disturbing ways. Colin Firth and Hart Bochner deliver a charged, claustrophobic two-hander wrapped in layers of deceit and longing. The film uses its eccentric ensemble of tenants and its love of classic cinema to deepen an already unsettling portrait of complicity and self-delusion.

Content: Political Violence, Depictions Of Assassination, Psychological Manipulation, Some Sexual Content