''1BR'' is a 2019 American

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

written and directed by David Marmor, in his

directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

. The title is an abbreviation of "one bedroom", commonly seen in real estate listings. The film premiered at

Fantasia International Film Festival Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcore ...

in July 2019, and was released in the United States in 2020.

Plot

An aspiring

costume designer A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage production or television show. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits or costumes and balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc. The costume ...

moves into a one-bedroom

apartment An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ma ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, unaware that the complex is owned by a

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

who use

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

to force new residents to join their

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

Cast

Production

During the early stages of production, the film's offices were victim of the Skirball Fire in 2017, and were forced to use producer Alok Mishra's home in the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

as the base of operations during filming. The outside exteriors of the apartments were used on-location in Los Angeles, with the indoor scenes being shot on a soundstage.

Release

The film premiered at

on July 18, 2019. The film had a limited theatrical and VOD release on April 24, 2020, before beginning to stream on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

on August 28. Over its first week of release on Netflix the film was among the top 5 most-streamed films, reaching #1 in the film section of the site.

Reception

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "''1BR''s occasionally ordinary storytelling is more than outweighed by tight direction, interesting ideas, and an effective blend of horror and thoughtful drama." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 8 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". John DeFore of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' wrote: "Taken on its own terms, it's a solid if hardly revolutionary thriller that bodes well for the filmmaker's future in genre films."

References

External links

* {{IMDb title 2019 films 2019 horror thriller films American horror thriller films 2010s English-language films Films set in apartment buildings Films set in Los Angeles Films shot in Los Angeles 2010s American films