The Resident (2011)

Sadly Over-hyped

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Personally i liked it very much. A movie that kept me guessing.

This thin story goes nowhere other films haven't gone before with more excitement and meaning or at least shocks. The moody first 20 minutes quickly turn into a slog after a "twist" that any brief description of the film will spoil before you watch it anyway.Like all of Hammer films recent (rebirth films--and much of their overall output and reputation) this is handsomely made film. Though most of it takes place on New Mexico shot interior sets it all looks seamlessly like NYC and features good real NYC exterior scenes. But so what? Jeffrey Dean Morgan proves that he has limits to what he can do here. I like the guy as a performer and he usually makes anything he is in better than it was before he arrived. Take the way he helped the second season of EXTANT TV series for example. But his acting isn't up to what's required here and his general vibe is all wrong. He is totally miscast here and can't overcome that. He seems too natural confident and relaxed to be the psychopathic obsessive loner we are supposed to believe him to be. The more they put him in situations that are to show how creepy his is the more the problem becomes and the situations become borderline silly.Swank is equally miscast really, not being willing to do any nudity--which a film that partly is supposed to be about sexuality its repression and obsession--requires, and she never seems emotionally or physically vulnerable. Her talking about being exhausted or repressed just seems like dialogue, not reflected in how she looks or acts.Why she'd be interested in being in a film like this is a bit of a puzzle. Being the center of almost every shot and probably being the largest single dollar amount in the budget would be appealing, sure.The whole thing finally turns into protracted and not well done slasher chase scene inside the apartment's confined inner recesses.Though the same director went on to do PURGE--leading to a successful theatrical run of movies--he does little here to show he has much interest in the genre. Only the classy production values separate this from a Lifetime movie and the fact that it barely got released is no surprise. This would be a not--too--good episode of Hammer's own previous television series in the 80's and it's just not, as made, a feature or worth feature length.Music score is useless adds nothing to the characters or supposed scares. Mostly the middle hour of the film is dull and predictable.Christopher Lee plays a part like his friend Peter Cushing did or might have were he still alive. That part is the old man. Really that's it, that's his role. He seems a little threatening....once.Lee plays it with a vacant, almost lost, old man look--that is not how he, himself looked at the time--so it is a performance and his final scene is well done physically--as Lee was always among other things a physical actor--even in a role here that requires mostly no movement. But having him in the movie and doing as little as they do here shows another level of script and directing disinterest. Especially to have him "return" to Hammer to make a film they basically do as little as possible with him. Still fans will see the potential the filmmakers didn't.The whole thing hardly seems worth the trouble of being made or watched.

In the deja vu land of recycled horror motifs comes a reboot of sorts for the legendary Hammer Studios. Cheated and needing a change of scenery Dr. Juliet Devereau (Hillary Swank) seeks a new apartment to fit within her 'meager' earnings as a New York surgeon (poor girl). Seemingly per chance she is offered a spacious apartment in a building owned by the charming, if somewhat off-beat Max (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his eerie grand-father August (Christopher Lee). Given the affordable cut-rate price Juliet decides to move in. Voyeuristic camera angles soon however suggest that someone lurks behind the wall of the apartment following every move of the unwitting object of obsession.Barely featuring the slightest hints of originality retreading well known thrills "The Resident" fails to offer any fresh resolution, somewhat surprising that Swank decided to personally attend to producing the stale script material. Disjointed at best the sole saving graces are the distinctive crazed gazes of Christopher Lee, which brings quality within his limited screen time, and a decent outing by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Max is initiated as an intriguing well-defined introvert with severe social disability, perfunctory suggestions as to his strongly skewed upbringing giving some slightly contrite backdrop. However any psychological depth offered by the oddly affable, if deranged, Max takes a hit, when the movie takes a utterly predictable turn into "Fatal Attraction" brutal denouement, throwing any pretence of a more complex thriller into the rabbit cooker.Derivative at best Swank fails to truly register, instead showing up as a cardboard character with no real impact on proceedings. And not even showing off a bit of naked flesh helps her case (or the movie in general for that matter). Several high notes of suspenseful build-up are registered, but far more memorable is the completely misplaced moronic concept to do a 'flashback' sequence, which 'unearths' the depths of Max's obsession. Not only is it overly long rehashing multiple scenes already shown to extend runtime by some 5 minutes, but additionally it is strikingly redundant, as the flashback adds absolutely no meat or true reveal to the story.

When I see stars who stole the world's attention in past years with movie's like (Million Dollar Baby and Black Dahlia) and they take a role in a TV movie, means only one thing...you are a "has been" taking anything in hopes of a career revival.And this movie if full of nothing but disbelief for the things that happen. The movie shows close ups of her and her body (I guess she paid a lot to keep it from looking like it did in the past, a little man like in the jowl) and I must admit she looks so much better now.I had to see what year this movie was made since I had not seen it before. Surprisingly its 2011. But she should have known what goes around comes around. She won an Oscar and thanked everyone except her husband. Later apologized and then left him for her manager. I think this movie's success is poetic justice.