The final film in Roman Polanski’s unofficial Apartment Horror Trilogy which includes Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby, is like a goofy combination of the other two films. Polanski stars as a timid clerk who moves into an old building. The previous occupant committed suicide by jumping out a window, and he suspects the neighbors may have had a hand in it. They constantly intrude in his life, persecuting him like an unwelcome outside, and behave like they mistaken him for the dead woman.
Polanski makes the bold decision of staying inside the perspective of the main character. When his paranoia grows into madness, the film traps itself inside his delusion so we’re unsure if he might be the victim of an occult conspiracy. That makes both possibilities equally plausible, which can be frustrating to the viewer, but like with Mulholland Drive, the lack of a definite answer is what makes it linger in the mind and fun to revisit.
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