The Inhabitant

Not what I expected at all. This was startling. It had me jumping off my couch. But the scares were combined with strong performances from the entire cast. Kevin Bachar's script was unpredictable but effective at every turn. The story unfolded as sort of a slow burn and rose to a rousing crescendo. The riveting original score and sound design was chilling. I'm perplexed that Hollywood spends tens of millions to make tired old rehashed stories when modest budget films like this are out there. If Hollywood would only put their money behind something original like this. I think part two can't be far behind.

There are plenty of great slow burn horror movies.

This is definitely not one of them.

I'll start with the good. Parents are clearly trying their best to carry the film, Dermot Mulroney and Leslie Bibb. The main actress is ok, which may be more of an indictment of the writing than the actress herself, since I thought she was good in Hellraiser. Practicals are good, but they use so many damn quick cuts they are normally wasted.

Everything else is pretty bad: we have the cinematography trope of "person is going crazy here's some quick cuts of blood", characters with odd motivations that don't make sense, subplots that are damn near irrelevant or exist to serve as red herrings.

By the end of the climax of the film I just couldn't care less what type of twist was coming.

This seemed like a pretty boiler plate slasher that tried and failed to be something more.

I had not heard about this 2022 horror movie titled "The Inhabitant" prior to stumbling upon it and sitting down to watch it. Of course with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, then I had to watch it.

The storyline in "The Inhabitant", as written by writer Kevin Bachar, was sort of bland and mediocre. Sure, "The Inhabitant" was a watchable movie, but you're not in for a horror feast here. The movie is very mundane and forgettable. And while I did manage to sit through the 97 minutes that the movie ran for, I was only mildly entertained.

The cast ensemble in the movie was okay, and there were some familiar faces on the cast list with the likes of Leslie Bibb and Dermot Mulroney.

Visually then you're not in for a grand cinematic experience. But then again, "The Inhabitant" is not really a movie that requires a whole lot of special effects or CGI to function.

For a horror movie then "The Inhabitant" felt monotonous and sort of bland. It is definitely not a horror movie that I would suggest horror fans to rush out and get to watch. Nor is it a horror movie that I will ever return to watch a second time. I am sure that newcomers to the horror genre might get a kick out of this movie.

My rating of director Jerren Lauder's 2022 horror movie "The Inhabitant" lands on a four out of ten stars.

After a strange series of incidents, a young woman believes that the constant attempts to medicate her instead of letting it manifest into a repeat of the deadly family legacy as a notorious serial killer's grisly history over the town are what's starting to wield a deadly influence over the town.

Overall, this is a rather disappointing and not-that-enjoyable genre effort. About the only positive to be found here is the generally impressive build-up this takes towards the issue of mental health and insanity. There's quite a lot of work throughout here that demonstrates the wrongheaded approach that this one employs, about bottling up the emotions with medications or outside forces in the hopes that it would prevent the very real signs of stress being exhibited about what's going on which provides quite a fine starting point here. Filled in nicely with the bits about the family's legacy that continually works its way through the film managing to fill in the crucial details of what's supposedly at stake if she continues on the way is she and also providing some decent attempts at stalking that crop up throughout here, it's all pretty much the only aspects to like here. This one does manage to fall short quite heavily with some big problems. The main issue here is just how dull and uneventful this one plays out, managing to go through the motions of a story in far more time than it should due to a slew of unnecessary and aggravating subplots that serve the film no purpose at all. The constant mentions by those around her to stay in line and keep taking medication, the intrusions by the police officers who seem to leave after one piece of information so they have to keep coming back for me, and a series of side-characters that aren't important to the main storyline clog up the running time here so it's not only confusing and overlong but severely uninteresting as well. There's little reason for this one to glaze over this concept in the manner it does when it's trying to make as detailed a connection between these factors that it is, resulting in a film long of dull, bland conversations without much time for scares or stalking until the end which is all too little, too late to mean anything.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and children-in-jeopardy.

The Inhabitant performances are terrific. Odessa, Leslie, Dermot and even Lizzie Broadway in a support role are fantastic. And Mikhail the neighbor is very creepy. But the best might be the caretaker lady at the Borden house! Would have given it a 10 but I don't think Lizzie Borden had such striking looks. Still, the script is very smart with unpredictable twists and turns. And gave these actors so much subtext to work with. Very effective sound design throughout helps keep things straight. Loved the mystery moving inside and out of the main characters head. The gore is subtle, quick and effective.