The Resident

Director: Antti Jokinen (2011)

Starring: Hilary Swank, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Christopher Lee, Iphone

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

A slick, sleazy but slow psycho-thriller from Hammer this, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan in fine form as Hilary Swank's suave but psycho landlord. On the rebound, Juliet (Swank) moves into a seemingly idyllic apartment (Swanky, even. GEDDIT) owned by Max (Morgan). Not following that rule about never pooping where you eat, she wastes no time in hooking up with the hunky homeowner. But realising that her heart lies with ex-fella Jack (Lee Pace), she stops short of intercourse. Already a little bit stalker, this drives Max over the edge. Truly unsettling sleaziness ensues.

The Resident is an alarmingly pervy movie, the kind of thing you'd normally expect from RapeLay. The whole thing is essentially just Jeffery Dean Morgan terrorising Hilary Swank, mostly without her knowledge. So he hides behind her walls and under her bed, watching her as she bathes and licking her fingers whilst she sleeps. He injects drugs into her feet and uses her toothbrush. Then he goes and has a Hilary Swank in her bathtub.

Because hot people can be stalkers too.

All I know is, after watching The Resident, I really wanted to buy an Iphone. Hilary Swank's Iphone is in this movie more than Christopher Lee. And when her Iphone isn't around, then the movie makes a plot point of her Apple computer. The Resident is for Apple products what I Robot was for Audi. Christopher Lee, by the way, injects little class but plays the same decrepid old man character he's been playing for the past few years now. But in this movie he has a trendy haircut. It's a nice touch, but not really enough to save the film from mediocrity.

Although if Twilight is to be believed, girls like being molested as they sleep.

It's very well directed, wringing tension from the stalking scenes and thrills from the showdown, bringing to mind the very underrated Pacific Heights. Hilary Swank and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are both very good as victim and villain, respectively. It's always refreshing when a movie's Scream Queen can actually act. But there's the overriding feeling that The Resident is coasting on its director's skills and its actors' charms. For all of its creepiness, it doesn't feel worthy of the Hammer brand. It's a direct to TV movie writ large, starring Christopher Lee and an Academy Award winner. Furthermore, it's fitfully boring and there's a completely unnecessary and extensive flashback sequence that serves only to spell out things we knew already.

The Resident is passable enough, but will probably make one think twice about seducing your landlord, moving into a house with Jeffery Dean Morgan or not buying an Iphone.

The Wake Wood

Director: David Keating (2011)

Starring: Aiden Gillen, Eva Birthistle, Timothy Spall

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Pet Sematary, Hammer Horror style. When their daughter is killed by a savage dog, Alice (Birthistle) and Patrick (Gillen) relocate to the little Irish village of Wake Wood. In true Wicker Man fashion, Wake Wood is populated by shifty-eyed hippies and a sinister fellow with dodgy dress sense - in this case, Timothy Spall's Arthur. Where Christopher Lee was more concerned with burning virginal coppers in his Wicker Man, Arthur offers the parents an opportunity to see their little girl again. They've discovered a way to resurrect the dead for three days only.

Things seem to be going well at first - their little Alice is back, sans doggy chomp marks - but Arthur and Wake Wood's fellow villagers seem to suspect something is amiss. Cue violence, Timothy Spall looking worried and more than a little undue violence towards a dog. Although if my daughter had recently been murdered by a dog, the last thing I'd be doing is letting her hang around with more dogs. Animals, in The Wake Wood are responsible for a lot of the gore and violence. There's the initial scenes in which Alice is munched on by a dog, and then a poor unsuspecting farmer Giles type is squashed by a cow. The Wake Wood is like a scary version of Emmerdale.

The Wake Wood, like Let Me In and The Resident is a fine horror movie but nothing like the standards as set by old Hammer. It's another step in the right direction, but at the moment there seems to be something missing. Maybe the budgets are too high, the American influence too obvious... it's too contemporary, perhaps. Otherwise, it's perfectly enjoyable, plenty chilly and done with class and style.

Let Me In

Director: Matt Reeves (2010)

Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Thankfully the only thing dumbed down by the Let The Right One In remake is the title. The moniker is clunky and a bit silly, but thankfully doesn't portend the thorough shittiness one might expect from this movie. Its biggest crime, as you might expect, is merely an unavoidable but constantly pervasive sense of pointlessness.

Owen (McPhee) is an unhappy child. His parents' marriage has broken up and he is routinely terrorised by bullies at school. And the weather's always crappy, which is bound to put a downer on anyone. Bonding over a rubik's cube, he meets Abby (Moretz) a kooky young girl who enjoys walking barefoot in the snow and shouting at her useless guardian (an almost unrecognizable Jenkins). But Owen's new girlfriend is hiding a secret. No, she's not a purple-haired superhero; the girl's a vampire.

But you know all that. Because you've seen Let The Right One In. Like the Hollywood Quarantine to Spain's [REC], Let Me In is a respectful, faithful piece that - in theory - is everything you'd want from a modern horror movie. The problem being, you don't know where the original stops and the remake begins. It's hard to praise a movie like Let Me In or Quarantine when the template is there for all to see. Let Me In is almost a scene-for-scene remake with improvements made only on a superficial level.

The things Let Me In does better than The Right One (wait for it, there's a King Pun payoff in the last paragraph) are technical type things. So Not-Daddy's serial killings are better, Abby is scarier, Owen is weirder and the crap CGI cats are gone. However, I actually liked the crap CGI cats. The scene in which the woman is attacked by cats was one of the best things about Let The Right One In. Every movie should have a scene in which a woman is attacked by crap CGI cats. Let Me In has no such scene.

Nevertheless, it's an eminently watchable piece. The performances are all very good - particularly McPhee and Hit Girl. Professional That Guy Elias Koteas and Richard Jenkins bring yet more gravitas to the already heavily loaded table. Director Matt Reeves does a great job in the directorial chair. It's just a shame he chose to lend his talents to such an overtly unnecessary flick.

Let Me In is a good start to the re-emerging Hammer brand. It's a very good piece, and if its subtitled predecessor didn't exist, I'd probably give it 5/5 stars. This is a story worth telling, make no mistake. But if you're going to feed just one vampire love story to your DVD player, please make sure you Let The Right One In.