Thirty-One Days O’Horror: The Resident (2011)

Dr. Bliss

The second coming of Hammer Productions in the 2000’s has focused primarily on traditional horror stories involving vampires, ghosts, and bringing the dead back to life, but 2011’s The Resident goes in a different direction. It uses voyeurism, stalking, and psychological horror to feed the fears of the audience. In theory this should have worked extremely well, but it’s all pretty flat despite a star-studded cast, a wonderful setting, and a plot grounded in reality.

In the film, Hilary Swank stars as Juliet Devereau, an ER doctor who finds herself in need of a new apartment. Thinking that she has landed the deal of the century, she moves into a massive apartment owned and managed by Max (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who lives in the building along with August (Christopher Lee in his final Hammer film role), an odd elderly man. As the days go by, Juliet begins to get weird feelings in her apartment. She also begins to hear odd creaking sounds. She struggles to determine if the sounds and feelings are genuine, a fabrication of her own mind, a supernatural occurrence, or even a stalker.

Thrown in for good measure is Juliet’s strained relationship with her ex, Jack (Lee Pace). When she begins seeing him again, the bizarre happenings seem to ramp up and Juliet has cameras installed to see if she can catch a ghost or her stalker. Things come to a head when Juliet begins to oversleep and arriving late for work. With a blood test she discovers that she is being drugged and things go into overdrive. Who is her stalker? Is it a ghost, a jilted lover, or something even creepier? Watch The Resident to find out.

This has got to be one of the worst Hammer films that I’ve watched during my Thirty-One Days O’Horror. It absolutely falls flat. There’s no genuine terror, no especially good acting, and the slowest build up to the most anti-climactic ending that I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a true shame that this was Christopher Lee’s final appearance in a Hammer film as he was completely wasted in it. Hilary Swank was uninspiring on the screen. Jeffrey Dean Morgan did manage to give us a few creepy moments but he fell flat as well. Poor Lee Pace……well, let’s just say that he did nothing to speed up or slow down the pace of this film. This was bad, y’all. Really…..bad.

Don’t watch this snooze fest unless you only want to see Christopher Lee in his final Hammer role. I cannot recommend it. It’s sad because this film had so much potential based on its cast and theme, but it never found its footing and never managed to do much more than generate a few icky feelings. This was a dud.

I want to thank you for reading this review. The film was pretty bad but I promise that tomorrow’s review will be of a much better film. See you later!