The Lodger

The Lodger is a great movie! It's full of suspense and the filming style is really the work of an artist. The dark, gloomy set, music and visual plays with the story line and created a film that was interpreted from the point of the viewers. From the start, I suspected who the killer was, but somewhere in the middle, I begin to suffer self doubt and wonders if it's too easy. Well, it was easy for me, but not so for the rest of the cast for they kept getting thrown off course and are deceived & misled by the murderer & clues.

Scenes were subjectivity played and viewers were encouraged to experience and feel what they want to feel. Scared, fear, sad, attracted, pity and even admiration for the murderer. Unlike Saw, blood and gore was not the lead, instead scenes were artistically filmed with intent of the murder that is happening. Through it, the viewers understand through the struggles, dragging of feet & blood trickling down the high heels, that the victim has died.

It's a great film! I watched mainly for Simon Baker (The Mentalist) but was amazed by Hope Davis the landlady. I hope for more art house film noir experience.

Amazon Review:

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Jack’s back, more or less, in The Lodger, a cleverly-plotted thriller-cum-horror story sporting a good cast and a nicely ominous vibe throughout. When Los Angeles Detective Chandler Manning (Alfred Molina) arrives at the scene of a prostitute’s grisly murder, the clues look awfully familiar. Seven years earlier, Manning had helped send to Death Row a killer whose M.O. was identical not only to this one, but also to that of the notorious Jack the Ripper, who terrorized 19th-century London but was never identified, let alone caught. Is this new monster, who goes on to kill several more defenseless hookers, a copycat? Or could it mean that the wrong man paid the ultimate price for the earlier crimes? Meanwhile, Joe and Ellen Bunting (Donal Logue and Hope Davis) rent out a room to a "writer" named Malcolm (Simon Baker), whose weird habits make him an obvious suspect. But there are several others as well, including Joe, who works as a security guard while Ellen nurses her active and rather twisted imagination, and even Det. Manning, a loose cannon type who may be a Jack the Ripper authority but whose life is a mess, what with an institutionalized wife and a daughter who blames him for her mother’s affliction. Adapted from a novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, this tale was turned into a silent film by Alfred Hitchcock way back in 1927 and has been remade several times since. No one will confuse David Ondaatje, who wrote and directed this version, with Hitchcock, and those familiar with the genre will have little trouble predicting how it all turns out. Nonetheless, The Lodger is a good ride, guilty pleasure or not. --Sam Graham