Image Entertainment | 2011 | 91 mins. | R
I have to think the makers of The Resident thought this film was going to be something better when they set out to make it. How else can you explain Oscar Award-winning actress Hilary Swank slumming it here? Or how other familiar faces like Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen), Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies), and Christopher Lee are in the cast. There must have been some wide release plans for The Resident, and then once there was an actual finished product, some studio executive saw it and said, “Yuck. This is going straight to home video.”
Upset by her longtime boyfriend’s infidelity, Juliet Deverau (Swank) moves to New York and goes in search of a place to live. After exhausting all her options and coming up empty handed, she receives a call from Max (Morgan) about a place that he’s renting. It’s a gigantic apartment, but is considered affordable by New York standards at $3,800 a month. It’s almost too good to be true. To top it all off, Max seems like Juliet’s dream guy. He’s kind, courteous, and seems to be around whenever Juliet needs help.
Juliet settles into her new place and everything seems good. Predictably though, things start to get really creepy. There are human-shaped shadows standing in the corner and shots of someone peering through holes in the wall, and a two-way mirror in Juliet’s bathroom. Now, where not supposed to know who’s doing all of this, but it’s painfully obvious.
The Resident follows nearly every tired horror cliché available. This is your typical cat-and-mouse thriller. When Juliet finally figures out what’s happening, she dispatches with her stalker using household tools. However, before she does away with him, the soundtrack is filled with the expected eerie, intimidating low tones whenever something bad is about to happen. Kind of gives things away, doesn’t it?
The Resident doesn’t work on any level. It’s not scary; it’s not shocking; just boring, and a waste of fine talent. The cast is given nothing of consequence to do. Lee Pace has like five lines of dialogue in the entire film and Christopher Lee spends most of the movie scowling ominously from behind a half-closed door. Neither of their characters is important to the plot. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a likeable actor and his early scenes with Swank—the ones before we know he gets all creepy—have chemistry, but when Max goes full-on psycho, Morgan totally loses the audience. As for Swank, she gets (partially) naked, and she does a lot of spazzing around her apartment, convinced that someone’s watching her.
The Resident is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The film is well shot and looks pretty good in high-definition. Colors are reference. Black levels are deep and inky with plenty of shadow detail.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is surprisingly atmospheric. Everything is blended to give you the best immersive experience this kind of film offers. The surrounds are not terribly aggressive, but they shine in their subtleness. Dialogue comes through well. The score never intrudes but can become dynamic when it needs to.
The disc’s sole special feature is the film’s theatrical trailer, in high definition, running just under two minutes.
