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Review: Travis Stevens’ “Girl on the Third Floor”

C.M. Punk’s MMA career didn’t go quite as planned, and although he’s currently serving as a commentator on Fox Sports 1’s WWE Backstage, he hasn’t expressed much effort in returning as a professional wrestler. That leaves a large gap in his work schedule, which he looks to fill by becoming an actor. His first leading role is in writer, director and producer Travis Stevens’ feature length debut, Girl on the Third Floor. Based on the story by Trent Haaga, Paul Johnstone and Ben Parker, Girl on the Third Floor follows Don Koch (Punk) as he begins renovations on an old Victorian home following cheating and work-related scandals. While preparing for his pregnant wife’s arrival, Don starts experiencing strange occurrences in the house and frequent visits from an increasing hostile young woman. Clearly, the big move isn’t going as planned, but no one ever anticipated it would get down-right deadly! Now streaming on Netflix after a successful film festival run, Girl on the Third Floor stars C.M. Punk (now reverting to his real name Phil Brooks), Sarah Brooks, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Travis Delgado, Karen Woditsch, Elissa Dowling and Tonya Kay.

Girl on the Third Floor was also produced by Giles Edwards, Nicola Goelzhaeuser and Greg Newman; and features cinematography by Scott Thiele and editing by Aaron Crozier and Scott Draper. As a somewhat independent production, this movie really lucked out on booking the location of the old Victorian mansion. It’s got the right amount of dust, dinge and ugliness to pull off the haunted house troupe. Even the colors of the wallpaper and the shape of the rooms promotes a dark and uncomfortable feeling. I couldn’t imagine staying in there alone, especially at night, because the atmosphere is thick and foreboding, and you’re constantly waiting for something supernatural to happen. Only the evil never truly manifests as much as you anticipate it to, resulting in a movie that’s sometimes boring and actually makes horror fans yearn for a jump scare or two (which is a cliche we hate). With a beautifully creepy house and a cast and crew that more than delivered on every account, Girl on the Third Floor is low on horror but high on everything else.

And let me not forget to mention that C.M. Punk has officially achieved DILF status. I was absolutely delighted (among other things) to see him without a shirt on or in his underwear on numerous occasions. I don’t blame Sarah (Sarah Brooks) for wanting a piece of that. Seriously, though, Punk’s performance in Girl on the Third Floor isn’t nearly as bad as other reviewers and user-based writer-ups make it out to be. Honestly, it’s pretty average for a film of this quality, and I don’t think he overdoes it (another complaint in other reviews). Dare I say it, with a couple more years of acting training, C.M. Punk could easily become a good replacement for Bruce Campbell. So, what was my problem with Girl on the Third Floor that’s going to cost it a higher score? The script/story tried to do a lot with the ghosts and mysteries and none of it was successful. Luckily, today was a slow day at work and I had a few hours to mull over it before the plot made a lick of sense. And when the horror elements did come off as calculated, they never went “there.”

A debut that makes you feel two of your senses in real life, Girl on the Third Floor is only stalled by its script/story. And the fact that the behind-the-scenes team could have shaved off the last ten minutes. I wish I could go into detail about this more, but I want to avoid posting spoilers. You’ll just have to watch it and find out. I mean, it IS free on Netflix.

Final Score: 5.5 out of 10.

Michael DeFellipo

(Senior Editor)

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