20130927: Horror Review--Occupant

Occupant

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, 2011, rated R, 85 minutes.
2. IMDB: 4.6/10.0 from 1,063 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 28% liked it from audience ratings.
4. Directed by Henry Miller, screenplay by Jonathan Brett.
5. Starring: Van Hansis as Danny Hill, Cody Horn as Sharleen Hunt, Thorsten Kaye as Joe (the doorman), Jamie Harrold as Harold.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Young man's (25 year old Danny Hill) grandmother dies; he comes by to identify the body.  She was in a rent controlled apartment.  The doorman's shyster relative convinces him to move in and stay for twelve days until he can get a court order completed.  This should protect him against moves by the landlord to oust him.  The apartment has 3500 square feet, and the rent controlled rate was 675/month, which is cheap for NYC.


2. Cody drops by and stays the night.  She had inquired at his work to find out where he was.  She's gone the next day without explanation.  Eventually he finds her camera and tries to reconstruct what she recorded.


3. The landlord tries a number of ploys (cable guy, pizza guy, the painter, exterminator) to get him to come out and get locked out.


4. The mirror scene is where the film jumped the shark for me: the mirror image keeps looking back and talking; the primary image goes quiet and turns away.  Hm.  The moving shoes was an ongoing joke I could have done without.


5. The exterminator kills the cat.  Gratuitous. Someone kills the exterminator.  Whoever could that be?  Also, who is the old guy who keeps showing up at the elevator?


6. By day nine I had given up on the film.  Danny had left the exterminator in the stairwell.  The doorman explains how the exterminator has a bottle of heart medicine in his pocket.  Amazing how that works.  Later that day he re-finds evidence that the cat is dead.


7. He gets into altercations with the neighbors when he starts hacking down walls in the middle of the night.


8. Danny's descent continues after the landlord cuts his power.  The doorman seems willing to enable anything Danny wants.  He starts building with the materials the doorman brings.


9. Eventually, though, they change the doorman.  When the lights go back on, he loses it for a while, again, in the middle of the night.  He gets to talk to the police.  Perhaps that should have been a major clue.  Then he finds the cat for sure.


10. Day twelve.  Danny's circling the bowl.  He can't get in touch with the lawyer.  He still has a dial tone.  He loses it once again.  He catches himself in one of his own traps.


11. After Danny's dead, the lawyer shows up with the court order.  Now Danny can leave the apartment safely.


12. Joe, the old doorman, returns; someone else moves in.  Someone who pays full price, I expect.  The child of the renter views the full clip of Cody's video recording, including Danny dragging her dead body away.


3. Conclusions
1. Uninspired psychological drama, not horror.
2. One line summary: Miserable acting by the lead to go with the not engaging screenplay.
3. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 The camera work uses some odd filters in several places. There are periods where camera shake is just too irritating.


2. Sound: 9/10 The incidental music is about ten times creepier than the screenplay.


3. Acting: 2/10 Van Hansis does not have the chops to play the lead.  Unfortunately all the other roles are more or less unimportant and of little note.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 Somewhat mysterious, but not engaging.