Sam gets a late call from Lindsay – she has fled her apartment as 'something' was in there with her. Collected a frightened Lindsay from a place far from her apartment, Sam is sure that it is the sleeping tablets playing tricks on her, and tries to calm her down.
It is that time of year where lots of horror short films come out, and too many of them aren't really up to scratch, perhaps thinking that silence and random bangs can do the trick without creating a decent scenario or working on capturing a mood or setting a tone. The Thing in the Apartment is not earth-shattering in what it does, but it understands what it is trying to do and it mostly does it well. The scenario is simple but engaging enough to make you follow it, while the 'thing' of the title is nicely used as both a very obvious presence, but also a suggestion of horror on the edges of the eye. Personally I preferred the film when it was doing this suggesting, and in particular the scene in the first half where a dark room is made darker by virtue of the person watching something on their phone was pretty effective as both suggested presence and jump-scare (not least because I, like many others was in a darkened room watching this on a tablet). The creature itself is well enough done to stand up to clear view, which we get, and although the film does fall back on jump-scares and a sudden ending, it is still effective as a genre piece – which to be fair is really all it is trying to be. Solid horror short that is worth checking out.
