The Inhabitants

Well a bit evil of course - but no pun intended on the other hand. So many things to consider - as always. One of them as mentioned is the budget. Many horror movies have the issue of the money. Or rather they are being made because they can be done without (or rather a low amount of) any money .. same is true here. So if you are aware of that - well you should not have too many issues with it.

It does deliver on some occasions, not being an instant classic or classic in any means of the word. But not every movie has to be or have that high bar. There are movies you just watch and ... well probably forget about. Just don't check in ... well but how would you know right? Another money issue when it comes to where to live and all that ...

The plot is one that has been done before – it is the haunted house scenario where previous misdemeanours still lurk as a stain on the soul of the property. The house here is an old New England home that is now a Bed and Breakfast but used to house an alleged midwife cum witch, child killer.

Enter Dan and Jess to buy the place. Dan has to go on a business trip and when he returns his erstwhile loving wife has turned cold and uncaring. He soon finds out that the house has a few secrets and so sets about finding out what happened in the past to cause such occurrences in the now. The perennial question is always, will he find out before it is too late?

Well the problem with horror is that fans expect an awful lot of a genre where it has basically been done before. It is hard to get a new twist and, even if you do, it then has to translate as 'horrific' or have some truly scary fright scenes. As we become more inured to slasher and gore fests so we tend to want more 'frights' and actually this scored quite highly there.

It actually gave me goose bumps more than once, but it does suffer from lack of characters. We don't get any back story of the couple either or enough time to get some positive feelings for the couple in the 'empathy bank', which means we are not going to care enough when bad stuff happens. The music is good though at atmosphere enhancement but it is started off by being 'spooky' and carried on throughout – we could have done with some variety or the tension starts to become the norm and therefore has less impact. Acting here is fine for a budget film – Michael Reed as Dan being rather good and directors the Rassmussen brothers have made a rather good effort which they say was a labour of love and that comes through. Not the best horror ever but a million blood drenched miles from the worst and for an independent effort there is plenty here to applaud.

It's an ok horror movie with nice atmosphere. While it has a lot of bad things in it, it was still enjoyable. The problems this movie has are mostly about acting and the script. The small act in the beginning, what was that all about - I felt like it was from another movie and had nothing to do with this movie. Then there was the adult smoker kids, why where they in the movie? What this movie did not need, was unneccessary scenes added to it - as it does suffer from slow pacing and it's borderline boring.

So there is a haunting in a bed and breakfast. New owners are impacted. Add the old owner as a source of limited information, and here is the film. Nothing special. Adequate acting at the best and decidedly not that often. There is a small sense of creepiness that doesn't really add to anything overall. Low key presentation and that's about it.

I've seen this movie more times than I can count. And I can count to infinity! Or so I was told.

Well, I never approved to the sentence "you've seen this movie before", yet, The Inhabitants brings absolutely nothing new on the table. It is the same old story, about a haunted house, where things happen exactly as you would imagine, ends the same and that's about it. Lousy effects, poor acting, weak dialogue, extremely over used plot and most likely 90 minutes wasted.

Without stretching it too far, this particular movie wouldn't scare anyone even in the 70's to be honest. And it is a horror movie!

Cheers!