Review of The Resident (2011) by Elliot N — 24 Aug 2011

Hilary Swank turns producer (and actor) for The Resident, a horror hammer film only in name. Hammer has released a few films of late two examples being Wake Wood (an independent Irish film) and Let Me In. Hammer Horror prides itself in creating a gothic and creepy atmosphere. The Resident brings back the single women in peril of the 1960s with limited effect, it's been there, done that type of movie.

Hilary Swank is Dr Juliet Dermer an ER doctor who needs a place to live after splitting up with her boyfriend who struggles to keep it in his trousers. She finds a cheap, well located, spacious apartment that meets her required needs. 'Is there a catch?' Juliet asks. There is, as her landlord is insane and takes a strong liking to the new tenant and begins to spy on Juliet, watching her sleep.

The main issue with The Resident is that it just is not very good. Swank and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, a sort of American Javier Bardem, try their best but the relationship between the two that blooms at the early stages of The Resident is not entirely believable nether do the two have any effective chemistry. Overall Swank's performance is effective but altogether unimpressive as Swank is let down by other aspects. Swank tries her upmost hardest to bring a sense of danger to proceedings but that sense of danger is hardly ever felt by the audience as The Resident is a rather bland, empty and dull horror movie without the scares or the chills. While Swank is indeed let down by other aspects, Swank never seems to overcome these obstacles, her performance is fine but Swank never becomes a suitable foundation for the film to be able to stand upon, to overcome the issues in the story, her performance needs to be superb. Swank is effective and efficient but forgettable. The talents of Christopher Lee (who was made famous by the Hammer horror films) are wasted in a supporting role that includes standing behind doors looking creepy.

There are many reasons for the lack of a chill factor, the stalker (played by a man) is not creepy or unnerving in anyway, firstly because his motive for his obsession with spying on Swank and his spot of voyeurism is not convincing in the slightest. The second reason is, when the viewer watches the stalker do a manner of crazy things you just think that he is insane but never are you remotely scared by him. The mystery to who is the stalker is revealed very early on, so the best part of an hour is spent watching Swank walk around her apartment not wearing very much (to the pleasure of the stalker it has to be said). Swank takes her shirt off more times then I felt like dosing off as all the scares were generated by random loud noises. There are plenty of scenes, in which Swank looking for source of a disturbance is stunned by a slamming window; all these night time strolls are far too similar to one another.

First time director Antti Jokinen, who started his career in making music videos never effectively handles the sense of dread, no sense mystery, the plot point revealing the who the stalker is the major downfall, as after that moment The Resident plays out exactly how one would expect leading up an even more predictable bloody final act that is laughable and generic as whatever Swank does the stalker seems impossible to stop. There is one hilarious scene in which Swank knees her stalker in the balls; it is laugh out loud funny and the final last, ditch attempt by the stalker to kill Swank just invites sighs of exasperation and eye rolling. If you manage to cope with the dull two acts before the conclusion your patience will crack during the final as every trick that horror movies regularly employ are evident here and if anything makes you jump, shame on you.

Further problems arise as I get to the rather boring, clichéd back stories, boyfriend trouble, divorced parents, the usual and this is just another example of how generic this single woman in peril movie really is. The Resident has been done many times before but with quality, tension and with the psychological terror of being spied upon. While no movie can truly be original but it at least has to be entertaining and The Resident is incredible boring. There is no tension, no scares, no surprises, nothing. If one thing of a positive note that can be said about The Resident is that Guillermo Navarro cinematography is wonderful to look at. Navarro bagged an Oscar for his work on Pan's Labyrinth; Navarro expert camerawork seems to be the only real positive note and possibly if the actual story, the flow of the editing was improved there would have been some tension that would lead up to the climax (which would ruin the film no matter how good the first two acts were) but Finnish director Jokinen never really masters the art of telling a story, developing a character enough to care about what happens and creating a nerve racking atmosphere that grips the audience.

The Resident is a rather bland and ineffective horror movie that falls victim to a rather rubbish, poorly explained underdeveloped story, a lack of chills, no sense of dread and final act that is laugh out loud funny. It's all far too generic, lacks imagination and most importantly of all. It's boring. Very boring. It's not the generic scares and story that bothers me most, it's the sheer boredom.

1/5.