A simple man, Dr. Walter Newman, has high aspirations to cure all disease through genetic manipulation. His obsession with his mission draws him deeper into his own dark world, distracting h... Read allA simple man, Dr. Walter Newman, has high aspirations to cure all disease through genetic manipulation. His obsession with his mission draws him deeper into his own dark world, distracting him from his wife Olivia and from his responsibilities to his patients at the Edgewood Asyl... Read allA simple man, Dr. Walter Newman, has high aspirations to cure all disease through genetic manipulation. His obsession with his mission draws him deeper into his own dark world, distracting him from his wife Olivia and from his responsibilities to his patients at the Edgewood Asylum. The doctors loyal but diabolical nurse, Ms. Tinsley, decides to take matters into her ... Read all
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Directed by Ric La Monte, The Tenant, gives us a look at how mutation can affect an individual and the ones around them. This movie needs a lot of work. The story was mediocre and mixed with weak acting that really showed. I could never really get into the feel of the movie for a couple reasons. Character development was non-existent. Half of the movie focused around the doctor and the other half focused around a group of deaf children running for their lives so, we never had time to truly understand them. Liz (Aerica D'Amaro) and Jeff (J. LaRose), the heroes and the chaperone's for the deaf children, didn't draw me into the feel of the movie, I found myself very detached throughout.
The camera and lighting work was done fairly well. I recall a scene where the mutated being was bashing a wall and the camera would shake with each swing. They did a nice job on the design of the mutated being, wasn't too cheesy and actually peaked my interest when we finally got a look at him.
Overall The Tenant wasn't the worst movie I have seen. It had its moments with the mutant but isn't going to make me go out of my way to find another movie directed or written by Ric La Monte. There are far better movies from this genre if you are looking for your inner mutation.
I'd find it hard to enjoy even if I were a fan of cheap & nasty horror films. It really doesn't have a niche. The best description I could give is that it's a really poor late-night TV movie with horrendous acting. I would estimate that 97% of the movie has that 'gripping' horror score playing in the background. So overdone its laughable.
The plot is poor and unoriginal, the effects are pretty cheap too. It's full of the usually horror clichés and attempts at building tension.
I generally find IMDb scores to be a pretty fair grade to go by but this one has really slipped through the net. There is no way on earth that this junk deserves a 7/10 (at the time of writing this).
I can only hope that people are joking.
The premise and the IMDb rating got me interested enough to check it out. I stuck with it for one hour until I realized that is was an hour I will never get back and damned if I would poison my memories of all the great or decent horror movies I saw, with a movie that should have opted to be campy and maybe saved itself.
I have to agree with other reviewers that the 10/10 reviews it has were obviously from vested interests.
At the top of the what is so awful about this I would have to place the blame on 1. The directing: Ric La Monte(the ceaseless melodrama burned me out and made me not care) 2. The writing: also Ric La Monte (Started out with my kind of premise but it soon became clear the writer knew next to nothing about medicine, suspense, mystery or building empathy for characters. 3. The acting (Justin Smith played the only character that I wanted to give a damn about but, lets just say when he took a break from the film the only ones left I could care for were 4 deaf mutes, many of whom signed like they were competing to see who could make the worst shadow puppet.
Unless you enjoy watching painfully bad slashers with lousy effects while on so much mind altering substance(s) that you will not remember that you watched it, do yourself a favor and pass.
This film has serious identity issues, despite paying homage to films like 'It's Alive', 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'Frankenstein' etc, the writer/director is clearly devoid of any originality and throws cliché after cliché at the audience. It also goes from being gory and serious to comedic and back again.
It misses the only opportunity of originality again when a group of deaf (and seemingly mute) children show up. Instead of using their disability as an interesting new twist on old conventions, they are instead treated as sheep who are merely there to slow down and impede the others.
The plot also has two 'halves', which means you get to spend twice as long getting to know two groups of unrealistic characters. Some of the acting and dialogue literally had me laughing out loud. Some ridiculous casting choices are made, a balding, one legged Barney Rubble type is married to a hot woman. Some of the inmates at the mental asylum are...hot women. I'm certain a guy was the casting director here.
The 'hero' is one of the most unlikeable characters I've ever come across and appears to have the intelligence and personality of an immature schoolchild.
I'm uncertain of the budget but the film is fairly well shot and the special effects and sets are pretty good. It's just a shame that this creature feature suffers from multiple personalities and is let down by a terrible script and some bad acting along with some of the most hateable characters ever captured on film.
A totally shambolic effort. The creators of this film should be ashamed and crawl away quietly from this rubbish.
***I've had to re-submit this, as worse than writing false reviews about their own movie, the creators are getting bad reviews pulled due to being 'abusive', how pathetically sad.***
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- SoundtracksGirls Boys Noise Noise
Written by Emily Stine
Performed by Emily Stine, Mike Castonguay, Isaac Carpenter
Produced, Engineered and Mixed by Mike Castonguay
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $15,003
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $750
- Apr 17, 2011
- Gross worldwide
- $15,003
- Runtime
- 1h 36m(96 min)
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1