A game performance by Nicole Brydon Bloom and several genuinely intense moments makes Apartment 1BR a disturbingly relevant horror thriller that sets its gaze on cult and community in Los Angeles.

There is a never-ending thirst for anything “cult” related these days. An always fascinating subject, interest has gone into overdrive with recent real-life examples in the NXIVM cult, and (of course) Scientology, of which both have generated a large amount of media content.

In Apartment 1BR comes a fictionalised, yet still deeply relevant, psychological horror story from writer and director David Marmor. It tells the story of Sarah (Nicole Brydon Bloom), a small-town girl who moves to Los Angeles in pursuit of becoming a fashion designer. Lucking in on a spacious apartment, Sarah’s new life of independence is turned upside down when her welcoming and hospitable neighbours reveal themselves as a cult, who use psychological and physical violence to “break-in” perspective recruits into their community.

Apartment 1BR makes great use of its apartment complex setting to establish a world onto its own, in which the key tenants of “selflessness, openness, acceptance, and security” are practised through methods cruel and inhumane. Marmor successfully draws comparisons not only to real life cult groups and their twisted practices, but also to tyrannical governments who use fear, violence, and subjugation to control their citizens.

The violence of Apartment 1BR is more psychological than physical, with Sarah bombarded by strange sounds and battered with tests that burrow deep into her psyche. There are moments of violence, however, that are incredibly brutal, and really hammer home the point that the stakes Sarah face are that of life and death.

Bloom is excellent in the role of Sarah, convincingly portraying not only the physical anguish brought upon Sarah’s head, but the internal conflict of a quiet yet strong soul battling against an insidious and nefarious worldview, in which utopia is promised yet a living hell in delivered.

Marmor has delivered a strong first outing with Apartment 1BR, an indie horror thriller that convincingly presents its big ideas to potent effect