The Resident (2011)

This is a American shot thriller from a Finnish director and put out by the recently revived Hammer Film--yep, the British production company known for its atmospheric horrors. "The Resident" gives nods to "Single White Female," "One Hour Photo" and "Fatal Attraction," where it's a dark tale of infatuation that builds and builds into a roaring obsession due to an object of desire that's out of physical reach.

Some look for specific qualities or rewards in relationships than others, such as a momentary bit of comfort, physical release or warmth and security. There's a middle ground where you both meet in agreement, yet there are those that want things to fall specifically in place and only go the way they want them to. There's going to be zero compromise with those aggressively tuned people, just a one track freight train of a strong personality and another unsuspecting person caught frozen on the tracks.

A woman named Juliet, played by Hilary Swank, is looking for an apartment after hitting a rough spot. She works by day as a doctor and after living in her new residence for a short while she's being watched with a privy eye at night. This has a few unsettling moments, as the watcher slowly works themselves up to get close enough to know what the bristles of her toothbrush feel like, as well as the brand of her undergarments. There's no real surprise as to who it is as there's only four main characters shown and three of them quickly seem unlikely. The filmmakers realized about a third of the way in and dropped the whole mystery element in order to escalate the encroaching visits in first person to Juliet's apartment. If it wasn't predictable enough, she eventually starts to suspect something's amiss and decides to take matters into her own hands in order to figure out the truth about what's going bump at night and why she feels so weird in the morning. Though the closer she gets, it causes the person to step out from the shadows for a finale that wraps up somewhat abruptly.

"The Resident" has a formula that's been done before with films that deal with unabated fixations that lead to stalking and voyeurism. This was a common template for slasher films, though this is definitely missing the gore and guts, but intact is the cinematic thrills. This does take it another step further with a few memorable scenes that push things over the top even if it mostly hints at them without actually revealing them head-on in explicit detail. That seems to be the main purpose: to show some suspenseful scenes and to cut and paste characters into scenarios in order to make that happen, as the story itself felt straightforward and ultimately inevitable. This might be effective towards creeping out your squeamish girlfriend, as it gives paranoid thought to sleeping alone and putting blind trust into strangers, otherwise there's not a whole lot of substance here to mine or to come back to for replay value. (Also submitted on http://fromblacktoredfilmreviews.blogspot.com/)