The Room Next Door

This rarely seen mystery Giallo from Fabrizio Laurenti, better known as Martin Newlin of "La Casa 4" aka "Witchery" aka "Witchcraft" and "Contamination Point 7" aka "The Crawlers" (in)fame, is a very atmospheric film about a man on the search of his past.

The year is 1940: After 15 years, Martin returns from Chicago to his Iowa village where he grew up. He left the village after a triple murder had occurred and he had testified against the main suspect, which condemned the latter to the electric chair. Martin has problems remembering what he had exactly witnessed that long time ago. The facts that he hears strange noises from the room next door (which is used as a storage room) at the hotel where he is staying, and that almost everyone in the village is now convinced that the convicted was innocent, make Martin investigate to find out the buried truth.

Co-written by Laurenti and fellow director Pupi Avati, "La Stanza Accanto" has often been called as somewhat of an inofficial sequel to Avati's own brilliant "La Casa Dalle Finestre Che Ridono" (1976). There are, without a doubt, striking similarities, but Laurenti's film is still undeniably original and a movie with a thoroughly own spirit. Laurenti develops a constantly creepy atmosphere, in which also seemingly unimportant details can become threatening. The longer the film gets on, the more is the past catching up with its protagonist (another parallel to Avati's "La Casa..." and the also Avati scripted and highly recommended "Dove Comincia la Notte" by Maurizio Zaccaro), and melancholy starts to almost "consume" the main character.

Together with the two other above mentioned films, "La Stanza Accanto", certainly Laurenti's best film to date, makes a unique loose mystery Giallo trilogy that deserves broader recognition among moviegoers. Rating: 8 out of 10.