The Girl in Room 2A

The Girl in Room 2A likely began life as a different film. A Scooby-Doo-style mystery-thriller. Not an award-winner, but not the kind those involved would be embarrassed to show their mothers either.

But somewhere along its creation, it was “spiced up” with additional nudity and violence. This manifests in several scenes of a masked figure torturing and murdering naked young women. One such scene even plays over the opening credits, as though the film were afraid its audience might otherwise desert the theater.

Such changes aren’t uncommon in foreign films. Changes to soften or enhance the exploitative elements allow the producer to sell the film to more distributors. Sometimes such changes included splicing in hardcore sex scenes.

I’m not opposed to such tweaking, unless it hurts the film. Such is the case with The Girl in Room 2A. You see, in the rush to add more exploitation, the film reveals its core mystery from the opening frames. This renders the film tedious, as we wait for the protagonists to catch up with what we already know.

The plot follows Margaret, a young woman recently released from jail. She enters a halfway house operated by an eccentric widow, occupying the titular room 2A. She soon discovers some creepy goings-on and learns the girl who occupied her room prior committed suicide under mysterious circumstances. This knowledge comes courtesy of the girl’s brother, Frank. A romance blooms between Margaret and Frank as they seek to discover what happened to his sister.

Of course, as I mentioned, we already know what happened to the sister. The opening scenes show a woman exiting the house, getting kidnapped, stripped naked, tortured and murdered by a figure clad in inquisitor red wearing a matching, solid-red luchador-style mask. As the credits conclude, we see her body thrown over a cliff.

But, lest you think this film could have been a masterpiece without this sequence, rest assured the script itself fumbles the execution. Even without this gratuitous intro, the script reveals its mystery too early. First, we get the head bad guy over-explaining to a victim, then later Margaret overhears a guest of her landlady explain why she’s wrong for doing what she’s doing.

The only true mystery is the red blotch that keeps appearing on the floor in Margaret’s room, and what kind of magic cleaner she uses to wipe it up with a single rag and leave nary a trace.

Throughout, the film splices in scenes similar to the opening. These misogynistic sequences seem at odds with the script’s lighthearted mystery-adventure tone and score. Shortly after another bit of torture, we cut to Frank and Margaret walking down a country road. They pass a farmer who remarks, “Ah, young love,” and everyone laughs.

Indeed, though lumped into the giallo genre, The Girl in Room 2A lacks a black-gloved killer, POV shots through the killer’s eyes, or even an escalating body count. As a contemporary-set Italian exploitation non-comedy, it falls into the genre by default, not convention.

Instead of the usual tropes, the film sports a low-stakes, Scooby-Doo nature, best exemplified by the finale which sees Frank chasing the red-clad figure across a sun-splashed field, while an upbeat score plays in the background. When he finally rips the mask off, the result will elicit groans, not gasps, as the mask in prior scenes was only semi-opaque, revealing the figure’s hairline, which doesn’t match the reveal, meaning the movie wasn’t playing fair.

Other incongruities exist, but I’ll leave these as an exercise for the reader, should they inexplicably feel compelled to watch this turkey. It’ll give them something to occupy their attention while they wait on Margaret and Frank to catch up.