Friday, July 17, 2015

SLUMLORD (2015) Fantasia 2015




On the eve of the birth of their first child, a young couple rents a house from a creepy landlord. Little do they know he has the place wired with camera and is well aware of all that goes on inside. Worse they never suspect that he has evil plans in store for them.

Okay low budget horror film is tense but suffers from having been here before. I mean if you've seen any mad psycho films of the last few decades you've seen this before. The set up is old hat. This is a story that's been done any number of times both better and worse. What bothers me about this being well worn territory is that the film is good enough that had a bit more effort been put into trying to hide the familiar territory this could have been a truly great film.

The real question I have with the plotting though is why would anyone rent anything from this guy? He's creepy as a box of weird bugs. WHo would want him in their lives on any level? He's a close relation to the lead character in HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2. Yes Neville Archambault gives a breakout performance as Gerald the title character, but he's so much better than the rest of the film that he weakens everything around him. You can't have that strong a character without him squashing everything around him- and it does. The plot gets crushed under his creepiness and the other characters don't register.

If there is justice Archambault is going to get noticed and make it super big in other films. Yea, he's that good.

Ultimate;y I'm disappointed.There is no arguing that the film does generate chills, there is a great central performance and the final denouncement is not expected, but the fact that so much of this is by the numbers kept me from giving myself over to it and I was waiting for the finale.

Recommended for hardcore fans who want to see the next big horror actor.

The film plays again Sunday afternoon. For tickets and more information go here.

No comments:

Post a Comment