The Reel Review
Convinced that their creepy neighbor is a serial killer, three roommates scheme to break-in to his apartment through the building’s antiquated laundry shoot, only to find themselves trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse with Russian criminals. Dermot Mulroney, Taylor John Smith and Sasha Luss star in this crime thriller/horror.
Despite an admittedly cool premise, writer/director Paul Tamasy’s more violent and bizarre knockoff of Only Murders in the Building has that vibe in which it thinks it’s much more clever than it actually is. The hokey story gets increasingly ridiculous and silly, with performances that are as weak as the feeble screenplay and one-dimensional characters.
The best elements of this meager crime thriller/horror are some unexpected deaths that occur throughout (surprise!) and the stunningly beautiful but hilariously hard-to-understand Luss. (Time to brush up on those English lessons, Sasha.) But it’s not enough to make this lame thriller worth wasting two hours of your time.
REEL FACTS
• Taylor John Smith’s big break was as the main character’s love interest in the 2022 romantic/crime drama Where the Crawdads Sing. He appears in 2020’s The Outpost, which Depravity writer/director Paul Tamasy wrote.
• Depravity is screenwriter Paul Tamasy’s directorial debut. He is best known for writing the screenplays for Air Bud, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and The Fighter.
• Sasha Luss is a Russian supermodel whose big acting break was in 2019’s Anna, where she played a fashion model/assassin.
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