Occupant (2011)
Director: Henry Miller
Writer: Jonathan Brett
Stars: Van Hansis. Cody Horn, Thorsten Kaye
Occupant begins with the
death of an old woman in her apartment. She shakes around, gasps, coughs, and
finally kicks the bucket. We have our
title and credits on display and the movie begins to chug along. The scene isn’t particularly frightening, in
fact, it's pretty goofy.
The setup
goes as such; the old woman’s grandson, Danny, arrives to confirm the death of
his long estranged grandmother. When, at
her apartment, he discovers that it's rent controlled on the lease and obscenely
cheap, considering it has 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, living room, dinning room,
and a kitchen. Or, we’re told that’s how
big it is; we hardly see more than 4 rooms the whole time.
The, at
first, apprehensive and grumpy Danny is told that if he can stay in the
apartment for 12 days without leaving he becomes the lease holder in the eyes
of the law and it remains rent controlled.
Once he finds out… he still doesn’t seem to really give a damn. Until the aggressively friendly doorman and
lawyer convince him he should stay… hell they even make arrangements for him,
deliver his food, and help him avoid being kicked out. The entire plot relies on a New York doorman
and a New York lawyer selflessly trying to get a 20 something guy a nice
apartment on the cheap. Next time I go
house hunting, I want that kind of representation. Yet this guy kind of treats them like shit
anyways. He’s such a passive character he
even starts painting the apartment and stops after like 3 minutes, leaving a few
red blotches for the whole movie, which makes it just that much more a chore to
get through.
- Sir anything you need, I
will get you.
- Hey f*ck off man, don’t be
pressuring me into the best situation ever.
Danny’s
also got himself a sexy, blonde, web stalker, she first appears when Danny’s on
the way to his grandma. She videotapes
him and follows him around a bit before they flirt. She comes back again, because we need a
female presence in the movie, saying she tricked the doorman into letting her
in. It’s not creepy because A. She’s
hot. B. She has whiskey. They
hang out, have dinner, have sex, and then she films herself going through all
his stuff, for her “stalk blog.” She treats it like an episode of “MTV Room
Raiders” but… it’s not his stuff… it’s his dead grandmother’s…ok.
- Hey how’d you know where I
lived?
We only met once, when you told me
you run a “stalk blog.”
- Don’t worry about that, I’m
pretty.
I’m just here to judge you based
on this dead lady's stuff.
Occupant sets up a lot of
potential scares and even more possible resolutions as Danny slowly goes
unhinged. Is the building owner trying
to scare him away? Is the doorman
preparing to kill him? Is it all a plot
by stalker-cam girl? Is there a monster in the closet? Is the apartment haunted? However, what the
movie fails to see is setting up all these scary possibilities doesn’t actually
make it scary. Especially when the
protagonist has no desire to actually do anything. It would be scarier if something started to
actually happen. Instead, we have a repeat of the stalker girl set up. Someone comes to the door, we build to a scare,
and we cut away to the next day.
Sure, there
are a few good moments. A dark figure standing in the background here or there
is actually pretty spooky. Watching a totally unhinged Danny build death traps near
the end is pretty fun, because he is actually doing something proactive. The atmosphere built in the apartment is
decent, and the film is shot better than it has any right to be. There’s just barely enough good to make you
sit through it thinking there will be a decent pay off. But… no… they even tell you the ending right
as Danny starts to hit on his stalker girl. Sadly. It turns out Danny was just crazy!
I don’t know why I even
bothered to think otherwise.
After Danny’s suicide by a door
filled with nails… yeah that happened and it was hilarious and awful. We watch
a new family move into the apartment.
We can only assume that it’s no longer rent controlled. A little kid finds stalker girl's camera (which
was left there because?) and watches the footage and what he sees is
terrifying. No, it’s not the sex tape
they made. Just footage of Danny killing and hiding the girl’s dead body! Then the door buzzer rings and the kid looks at the door in fear. We close the
movie.
The movie
leaves so many unanswered questions, sets up so many cool little things, and
then fails to deliver on any of it.
Outside of a few cool shots and the doorman’s funny facial hair there is
nothing redeeming about this movie. Just
skip it.
Hello, I’m your friendly
doorman… and this is my mustache.
- Will Woolery
