On “The Resident”
After waiting in vain for “The Resident” to come out in theaters, I finally got it on DVD via Netflix. I considered just buying it outright to get it faster, but now I’m glad I didn’t.
My Spoilery Review that Spoils
I wanted to like “The Resident”, because I like creepy movies and I like Jeffery Dean Morgan. So Jeffery Dean Morgan in a creepy movie should be made of win, right? Wrong.
First of all, it was predictable. The worst kind of predictable. I don’t mind knowing who the bad guy is early in a movie (if you guessed JDM’s character, Max, from his leering profile on the movie poster, you’d be right), but as the movie progressed, it was really obvious exactly how it was going to end. You knew Max was going to get rid of his grandfather. You knew the exboyfriend was going to die as soon as he got too curious. You knew that the female lead, Juliet, wouldn’t have the good sense to run screaming to the police when it became obvious that something was wrong. Syringe cap under the bed? And that didn’t make you think that maybe it was time to call the cops, or at least stay with a friend for a while? Aren’t you a doctor? Aren’t doctors supposed to be, you know, like, smart?
One positive was the early shift to Max’s perspective. For a little while I thought we were actually going to get a look at obsessive psychopathy from the killer’s eyes, and learn the history that lead to it, but it was not to be. We got hints, but nothing more, and then it was right back to the terrorizing.
I will say this, though, Jeffery Dean Morgan can pull off the creepy. He genuinely freaked me out, and squicked me out, more than once. Let us never again speak of his bathroom scene.
Hilary Swank was good, too, but not good enough to save the movie. The genuinely charming or interesting scenes only made the drivel surrounding them that much worse. Watching her watch the video of Max sneaking through her apartment and assaulting her in her sleep would have been more powerful if I hadn’t been thinking, “You dumbass. Why didn’t you check the video earlier, and what the hell are you doing sitting alone in the apartment now?”
All in all, not one I’ll need to watch again.