I’ll give them points for having an interesting premise, but that’s it. The finished product, however, is boring, directionless and pretty damn tedious. And let me be the first to tell you that there’s no monster or evil hiding in the basement like the previews would have you believe. I guess they made it look scary because it was based on a Stephen King novella. Well, it’s not! Besides, what’s in the basement only occurs in the last half-hour and isn’t exciting in the least. The movie simply takes a nosedive halfway through and never recovers.

      In terms of acting, Brad Renfro is a boob and Ian McKellan is excellence wasted. David Schwimmer though gets an honorable mention for his performance, which is very good despite being so small. There’s not much of value in APT PUPIL after that. It’s not even worth making fun of. It just sucks, plain and simple.