REVIEW: The Resident

STALKER ALERT

Hillary Swank’s name heading the cast gives this hackneyed stalker film a sheen of respectability it does not deserve. The one noteworthy thing about Finnish writer-director Antti Jokinen’s The Resident is horror movie star Christopher ‘Dracula’ Lee appearing on screen after over three decades—not so surprising because it comes from Hammer Films, with a history of horror movies behind it.  If he still has some cult movie fans left, they won’t find it worth their while to rush to this film. 

New York doctor Juliet Devereau (Hilary Swank) moves into a large, low-rent apartment with a view and it is clear there has to be a catch—and there is a major one. Her landlord Max (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a voyeuristic pervert, who has equipped the apartment with all kinds secret spaces, passages ways and peep holes.

Her initial flirtatition with him and then the brush-off  drives him over an obsessive edge.  When Juliet’s ex Jack (Lee Pace), reappear,  Max turns violent. The way he goes about spying on her, intruding into the apartment, drugging her,  is discomfiting to watch.  But after a point is it done in such an obvious way, that if he wasn’t meant to be scary, he would be comical (brushes his teeth with her toothbrush, eww!)

However, the creepy intruder antics can be dragged up to a point.  And unless some really unpredictable plot devices can be thought up, such films invariably descend into the slasher-horror domain.

Alfred Hitchcock said everything that was to be said about Peeping Toms in Psycho… other voyeurs just seem like copies of  Norman Bates, give or take a few kinks.  The girls in such films are usually cast for their blonde glamour and strip-worthy figures, which is why a strong actress like Swank seems a misfit in this generic stalker-slasher film. Cristopher Lee plays Max’s sinister grandfather… what a way to tumble.

Despite the competent cast and eerie atmosphere-building, this film has formula stamped all over it.