‘The Occupant of the Room’ Review: A Gorgeous Christmas Ghost Story
Writer, director, and author Kier-La Janisse has been one of the voices at the forefront of horror scholarship for years now. From books like House of Psychotic Women to documentaries like Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, her work is a kaleidoscope of warm, inviting insight in the genre space. Now, Janisse has emerged with her first-ever narrative film, just in time for the holidays.
Adapted from the short story of the same name by the great Algernon Blackwood, The Occupant of the Room is the latest entry in Shudder’s budding holiday anthology The Haunted Season, an effort by the streamer to continue the tradition of scary ghost stories for Christmas. With the depth of her horror knowledge and cinematic study, Janisse is ideally positioned to deliver on this kind of film, and she doesn’t disappoint. Lean, atmospheric, and cloaked with dread, this is the perfect bite-sized beginning to your Christmas horror viewing this December.
The story is simple and closely follows Blackwood’s original text: On a December night in 1933, a lone traveler (Don McKellar) arrives at a small mountain hotel in the Swiss Alps, only to find his reservation is nowhere to be found in the books. Worse still, the hotel is entirely booked, which means he has to go back out into the cold and find other lodgings. Seeing an opportunity, the hotel staff offers him a room booked under another guest’s name, who vanished on a recent trek into the mountains. The traveler accepts, grateful for any warm bed, only to find that his rest is troubled by the feeling that he might not be alone.
Like many of the best classic ghost stories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Blackwood published this tale in 1916), much of The Occupant of the Room unfolds entirely in the room itself, with only our protagonist to propel the narrative. McKellar, with his expressive eyes and ramrod straight characterization of this world-weary yet always proper gentleman, is asked to carry much of the tension on his shoulders. He gets to play one of the great stock characters of classic horror stories – the put-upon stranger just trying to get some rest – and he imbues it with his own energy, his own style, and that feeling so many of us share in scary situations: A drive to know, really know, what’s going on in this strange place.
Blackwood’s stories, while still making sense from a narrative perspective, are steeped in a specific tone-poem energy that makes them challenging to adapt, because mood is such a key player in both the structure and the emotional movement of each scene. This is a story about a guy who doesn’t know someone is in the room with him. He has a feeling, and it’s hard to explore feelings, especially in the horror space, while keeping the audience hooked. McKellar’s performance goes a long way to achieving this, but it’s Janisse who shapes every element into something chilling and resonant. As you might expect from a student of horror filmmaking, she is deeply concerned with imagery and how we perceive with our eyes.
Janisse frames and reframes Blackwood’s narrative through a painting on the hotel room wall, a mirror over a washbasin, a 1930s photo project, and, finally, a moonlight-bathed window looking out on the Alps. Each of these images gives us a piece of the puzzle, not just in terms of plot, but in terms of feeling. McKellar’s character interprets and reinterprets the images around him, clawing for meaning, for explanation, and what he finds is a nightmare expanding with the patience of an accumulating snowfall outside. The film is only 30 minutes long, but it unfolds with such elegance that it feels both a mere moment and a thoroughly satisfying feature. Top it all off with a nerve-jangling string score by Anju Singh, and the craft on display is simply phenomenal.
The Occupant of the Room is the kind of film made for dark December nights when the wind howls outside your window. It’s a remarkable narrative debut, a chilling piece of Christmas horror, and a must-see for fans of classic ghost stories.
The Occupant of the Room is now streaming on Shudder.
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The Occupant of the Room
Summary
The Occupant of the Room is the kind of film made for dark December nights when the wind howls outside your window. It’s a remarkable narrative debut, a chilling piece of Christmas horror, and a must-see for fans of classic ghost stories.
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