Someone in the Room
屋内有人
China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 89 mins.
Director: Bian Yuan 边原.
Rating: 6/10.
Low-budget horror/thriller is inventive and meticulously plotted, and doesn’t go in the expected directions.
STORY
A city in China, the present day. Taken home at night by her driver Xiaozhang (Li Hanjun), theatre actress An Ran (Wu Hanyi) thinks she sees a young boy by the roadside. Entering her modern apartment block, she panics that she’s being followed by a drunk in the lift. Reaching her flat, she’s called by her agent, Ke (Tang Jing), to say that her plane ticket is for 09:00 the next morning. With her husband Dawei (Yu Zhen) away, An Ran is alone in the two-storey flat and she starts to think that someone else is also there – maybe the boy by the roadside. Unsettled, she asks Ke to come round for a while, so she can also personally give her the key to the flat (to feed her cat Xiaomeng while she’s away) rather than leave it under the doormat. (Sometime earlier she’d told Dawei that she was pregnant. He was very happy, but then she’d said she really wanted to take the lead role in a film she’d been offered, as it was a big career break for a theatre actress.) After a drink together, Ke convinces An Ran that her fears are all imagined. She leaves and An Ran, after locking the front door, goes upstairs to bed. (After her talk with Dawei, An Ran had told her gynaecologist [Liu Sitong] that she wanted an abortion.) Upstairs, the cat Xiaomeng acts as if someone else is in the room, and An Ran imagines the boy is under her bed. However, she then realises that a masked man (Tian Xiaojie) is hiding there. (The man had used the key under the doormat to get into the flat. While he was stealing An Ran’s collection of watches and cash upstairs, she had arrived home. He had hidden while Ke came round and, when An Ran had gone up to bed, he’d initially hidden in the bedroom cupboard.) The burglar terrorises An Ran with a knife; but she breaks free and locks herself in the bathroom. (One evening she’d pointed out to Dawei how she could hear the couple upstairs through a ceiling vent.) An Ran tries calling for help, hoping the couple upstairs will hear. The burglar tries to leave the flat but finds the front door locked and An Ran has the keys with her in the bathroom. After a struggle he finally gets hold of the keys. But then there is a knock at the front door.
REVIEW
A way-above-average Mainland horror that’s plotted with Swiss-watch precision and doesn’t go in the usual, expected directions, Someone in the Room 屋内有人 sounds like (and even advertises itself as) a continuation of the Who under the Bed 床下有人 series (2011-16) but is in fact nothing of the kind. It also marks the writing and directing debut of Shanxi-born Bian Yuan 边原, 46, a jobbing actor with a few movies to his credit (black crime comedy Under the Temptation 四戒, 2012; the boyfriend in Xinjiang-set Fake Teacher 我不是老师, 2020) but no apparent experience on the production side. A quality entry in one of the Mainland’s weakest genres, it still managed only RMB3.3 million when released early this year, an average figure for low-budget Mainland horrors.
The opening minutes promise a routine “ghost” movie, as a theatre actress is driven back to her flat one evening and thinks she sees a young boy standing by the roadside. After a flashback to her telling her husband she’s pregnant but doesn’t want a child at this point in her career, plus more “sightings” of the child as she’s alone, nervous, in her flat, the film again looks like going into familiar psychodrama territory. But when she realises there actually is someone in the flat, it rapidly turns into a home-invasion thriller and then, as more flashbacks pile in, something much more complicated. Without giving spoilers, it can be said that Bian’s script, unlike many horrors/thrillers, actually makes logical sense and is meticulously plotted without appearing to show off. A further twist around the 70-minute mark, when it seems that the film has almost run out of puff, is a real treat – and also ties cleverly into scenes already seen.
Bian’s script also has a black sense of humour throughout, which prevents the whole thing, which is set almost entirely within the actress’ two-storey flat, from becoming repetitive or precious. As the woman-in-peril, Wu Hanyi 吴涵伊, a Hui-minority theatre/tv actress with no film profile, brings a mature heft to the role, making it more than just a girly screamer. Production values are modest but clean and good-looking under the widescreen photography by Liang Baoquan 梁宝全, and the running time tight under the editing of Qian Lingling 钱泠泠.
CREDITS
Presented by Zhejiang Dongyang Zhenzhi Film & TV Culture (CN), Shanxi Jinxuantang Sports Culture (CN), Beijing Audience Favorite Pictures (CN). Produced by Beijing Audience Favorite Pictures (CN), Beijing Weitang Film & TV Centre Culture (CN), Xinyi Film & TV Culture (CN), Xiangshan Haijiang Film & TV Culture Studio (CN), Beijing Image World Film & TV Media (CN), Beijing Lusheng Music (CN), Dazhou Music Studio (CN), Shuihong Music Studio (CN).
Script: Bian Yuan. Photography: Liang Baoquan. Editing: Qian Lingling. Music: Da Zhou, Shui Hong, Wu Yuheng. Art direction: Guo Dali. Costumes: Liu Yang. Sound: Zhang Xinxin, Li Lusheng. Executive direction: Zhang Bo.
Cast: Wu Hanyi (An Ran), Tian Xiaojie (burglar), Yu Zhen (Dawei/David, An Ran’s husband), Liu Sitong (Xia Qing, gynaecologist), Yu Xiaowei (delivery-service manager), Fa Xuru (Wang Xiaopeng, neighbour), Tang Jing (Ke/Coco, An Ran’s agent), Jin Yan (male upstairs neighbour), Li Hanjun (Xiaozhang, An Ran’s driver), Yan Qin (female upstairs neighbour).
Release: China, 7 Jan 2022.