But it's not great, either. The Roommate is basically Single White Female: The College Years, starring a raft of familiar faces from CW shows and recent youth market projects. Minka Kelly projects an easy likability as Sarah, a design major in her first year of college in L.A., and the script lets us know early on that Sarah is vulnerable due to having lost her beloved sister at an early age. Sarah quickly makes friends with the party girls in her dorms. And then she meets her new roommate, Rebecca. Leighton Meester does a good job with the material at hand, showing us how Rebecca could be both sadly vulnerable herself, yet also incredibly dangerous. The viewer can feel empathy for Rebecca at the same time as feeling repelled by her actions and hoping she is stopped. That's pretty impressive, considering the script could have easily led an actress to portray this character as little more than a monstrous cipher.
Still, this is supposed to be a horror movie, and it succumbs to a problem common to PG13 horror movies: it's just not horrible enough. It tries to get away with suggesting horror without showing any of it, but the power of suggestion in this case is just not quite enough to convey the mounting terror this story wants us to believe in. Also, as other reviewers have mentioned, there is a surplus of cheesy lines in this film. You expect it from a horror movie, but come on. It's still got to fit the context of the story. A prime example is a line of Sarah's near the end, which is meant to be a classic horror kiss-off line, but if the audience believes it, then the girl we've been rooting for all this time is no longer the savvy chick with a case of supremely bad luck, but the most trusting moron in the history of the universe.
In spite of the irritating flaws, The Roommate has plenty of atmosphere and a good cast. This is a good one for the dollar theater, as this is exactly the kind of film that is best watched with a bunch of people who aren't shy about yelling at the screen.
Still, this is supposed to be a horror movie, and it succumbs to a problem common to PG13 horror movies: it's just not horrible enough. It tries to get away with suggesting horror without showing any of it, but the power of suggestion in this case is just not quite enough to convey the mounting terror this story wants us to believe in. Also, as other reviewers have mentioned, there is a surplus of cheesy lines in this film. You expect it from a horror movie, but come on. It's still got to fit the context of the story. A prime example is a line of Sarah's near the end, which is meant to be a classic horror kiss-off line, but if the audience believes it, then the girl we've been rooting for all this time is no longer the savvy chick with a case of supremely bad luck, but the most trusting moron in the history of the universe.
In spite of the irritating flaws, The Roommate has plenty of atmosphere and a good cast. This is a good one for the dollar theater, as this is exactly the kind of film that is best watched with a bunch of people who aren't shy about yelling at the screen.