Main cast: Phil Brooks (Don Koch), Trieste Kelly Dunn (Liz Koch), Sarah Brooks (Sarah Yates), Elissa Dowling (Sadie), Karen Woditsch (Ellie Mueller), and Travis Delgado (Milo Stone)
Director: Travis Stevens

Girl on the Third Floor is wrestler CM Punk’s acting debut – he uses his real name in the credits, of course – and I have to confess: I occasionally make myself watch the sideshow known as wrestling because of him. What? Look at him! There is something just… animal about him, alright. He looks nice in this movie too, and those scenes of him in his undies show that he clearly doesn’t neglect leg days. Shame about those tattoos, though.

Anyway, as Phil Brooks, he plays Don Koch, who moves into the new house he his wife Liz has purchased to renovate and make it nice enough for Liz to join him later. Liz is pregnant with their daughter, and Don is determined to make things right this time around. A former convict, he is determined to do something, as all this while Liz has been the one that brings home the bread and keep a roof over their heads. Unfortunately, his efforts to fix the house soon reveal that things are not what they seem about the place.

For one, the walls are caving in, and there are all kinds of leaks that ooze gross tarry stuff and semen. Yes, semen. Even the shower dribble that stuff onto poor Don. You’d think any sane man would call up the real estate agent and ask for professionals to step in, especially when Don is flailing to get things done in the first place, but no, Don’s too stubborn to give up even when the house is practically ejaculating on him. Worse, he indulges in an ill-advised fling with Sarah Yates, a neighbor, and she soon goes all Fatal Attraction on him.

You may be thinking by now whether the movie is a comedy. Indeed, Mr Brooks plays up his role like he’s in one, and a big bulk of this movie resembles some kind of vulgar misadventures in house renovation comedy. However, the rest of the movie is played straight, so the end result is an exercise in tonal whiplash; Mr Brooks seemed to have received a memo that is different from the one received by the rest of the cast.

Still, I keep watching because I wonder where this movie is heading. Plus, the lead actor is so pretty. There is a nice build-up of tension that is done without cheap and tired jump scares, so for a while I am willing to see where this ride takes me.

Unfortunately, the reason why the house keeps dribbling semen on Don becomes apparent when the whole thing turns to be some lame “reveal”: the house is apparently mad about straight men in general because of what those men did to the women that used this place as a prostitution den, so it does all it can to get men that move in to indulge in their base instincts and then say, “Hah! See? Toxic masculinity! Die, men, die!” I don’t know. While Don isn’t exactly a saint, I can’t help feeling sorry for him because what is done to him is basically entrapment. This movie should have let Don commit his sins on his own instead of telling me that the house has a hand in it – it would have worked better if the house had been solely the judge and executioner.

Even the movie seems to be aware of this, as Liz says in the end that the whole game is “shitty”. I agree, and I also extend that description to the payoff in this movie. All that time I spent watching this thing… for this kind of revelation?

While the statement the movie is trying to make – men suck – isn’t anything new or profound, its biggest sin is the lapses of logic it is willing to undertake to deliver the message. Why would anyone want to buy, much less move into, a tacky place that used to be a brothel, completely with ugly furniture and all? Why would Don insist on staying in that place to fix things up when weird things start happening – things that would have anyone go, “Hey, this is not right, I’m out of here!”? Why would Liz want to raise a baby in that house after all she has witnessed?

I don’t know, the whole thing is just dumb. Girl on the Third Floor is best reserved for folks who have always wanted to see fake semen being dribbled all over CM Punk. Everyone else, well, there’s always something else.