“The Resident” Movie Trailer Review

“The Resident”

Movie Trailer Review

By our guest blogger, Joe Oliveto

Hilary Swank makes some odd career choices. For every beautiful and challenging film she appears in, like “Boys Don’t Cry” or “Million Dollar Baby,” she goes for some gimmicky pseudo-blockbuster, like “The Reaping.” She’s extremely talented, but it’s easy to forget that when all of her great performances are sandwiched between two-dimensional roles that ask her to do little more than look serious and/or scared for two hours.

At first glance, it looks as though “The Resident” will be yet another movie that makes a few bucks opening weekend and then is forgotten about forever, but we won’t completely write it off just yet. It’s another feature from the legendary Hammer studio, which recently returned to the cinematic world with last year’s terrific but under-seen “Let Me In,” an American adaptation of the novel that inspired “Let the Right One In.” That’s good news.

More good news comes in the form of the supporting cast. We already know Swank can act, although her heart never seems in it with these types of roles. But as far as co-stars go, she has Christopher Lee, who has made a career out of stalking the frames of Hammer films (he plays “evil sinister guy” well enough to play villains in both the “Star Wars” prequels and “The Lord of The Rings”), and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who may not be as talented as his lookalike, Javier Bardem, but is making a name for himself as a noteworthy character actor.

The problem with movies such as these are that they need to be fantastic in order to be memorable. A lot of merely “good” movies still find a place in our cinematic memory because the stories they told dealt with themes that helped to ingrain the film into our minds. Movies like these, where subtext is hard to come by and plot is everything, need someone like Hitchcock at the helm to make them work, otherwise they become little more than an overpriced way to waste time on a Saturday afternoon.

Still, from what we can glean from the trailer, the premise is creepy enough—just the thought of someone intruding into your home is unsettling—and if the filmmakers put in their best effort, maybe we’re in for a surprise. Just don’t bet on it.

View the trailer below. Thoughts?