Girl on the Third Floor - A Movie Review

Whatever you do, don’t go into the house across the street. It doesn’t know its own plot-line.

Girl on the Third Floor is a 2019 film about a man who is trying to fix up a rundown mansion for he and his expecting wife to move into. Little does he know about the dark ghostly history in which has affected this house.

Girl on the Third Floor is a strange haunted house movie - if I can even call it that. By the time this movie ended, I had no idea what to think about the strange scenes, dialogue, and character interactions. It is a film that clearly didn’t go through a second edit in the writing room and comes off as ridiculously funny in the final edit.

Don Koch (C.M. Punk) is a flawed human with no redeemable qualities. For one thing, he doesn’t know how to fix up a house, sticks his hands in disgusting goop, and cheats on his own wife. From the beginning, he is an unlikable person. He never thinks about the strange occurrences that are going on in this house, getting himself into trouble, ruining the house more and more. Whether it was intentional or not, Punk delivered hilarious bits of comedy trying to do the most simple task but failing.

If this movie had better writers, Sarah Brooks, in some way, saves the film as a mysterious woman who keeps appearing to mess with Don’s conscience. I liked her choices for her character, but she could have been executed better to tell a more concise ghost story.

For most of the film, Liz Koch (Trieste Kelly Dunne) is seen through video chat. As the wife of Don who knows how flawed her husband is, you have to wonder why she stays with him. In the middle half of the film, suddenly it becomes her story. Arguably, Dunne was one of the best actors in the film, only to be given a bad direction. In the end, writers give her a strange outcome.

I think that it would have been a better idea to have Don and Liz together the entire film fixing up this old house and experience these hauntings together instead of keeping them separated. Focusing on just Don was a mistake because there was no character development what so ever.

Other actors to appear in the film are Karen Wodistch, Elissa Dowling, Travis Delgado, and Marshall Bean. Most of these characters don’t make sense to the plot, but they all interact with Don showing what kind of selfish person he is. Wodistch was one of my favorite characters who provided exposition about the house’s haunted history. But, then she is hardly in the film.

The story is confusing and most of the character behavior is unrealistic. Why would anyone remain calm instead of freaking out when they see strange people in their house? The ending had a very strange angle, and I was trying to figure out what I just watched as soon as it ended.

Travis Stevens could have done a better job with the story and his direction of Girl on the Third Floor. I know that it could have been a better film if he changed the story-line, had better character dynamic, and if he expanded more on this backstory of the house which was fascinating. It’s too bad that it is overshadowed in a film that is not sure of its own story-line.

If you want to watch Girl on the Third Floor go to Netflix and take a look at it if you are in need of a laugh. It was entertaining.