The Landlady

After killing her cheating husband, Melanie (Talia Shire) moves into an apartment building she inherited from her aunt. There she meets one of the tenants (Jack Coleman) and decides he's the perfect man to become her new husband. When anyone gets in the way of Melanie and her obsession, they find themselves in for a world of hurt.

Well, this was a pleasant surprise. Don't let the low IMDb score fool you, folks. This is an entertaining tongue-in-cheek thriller with a wonderfully campy performance from Talia Shire. This is the only time I've ever seen her in a lead role, let alone a comedic one. She makes this whole thing work. The thriller aspects are all predictable, which accounts for the low score I believe. At the risk of insulting the reviewers who didn't like this, I have to wonder how they didn't notice how the movie doesn't expect you to take it seriously. If you think the people behind this thought they were making Fatal Attraction or something, then I have to question how much of the movie you paid attention to. For those who haven't seen it yet, give it a shot and I think you'll find it's more fun than the low score and negative reviews would lead you to believe.

At times it seems Talia Shire was playing this for laughs. Her performance definitely hit some very campy notes. Fairly predictable the whole way but becomes ludicrous as the body count piles up. And it's always good to see Courtney Gaines(Rags from "Hardbodies") still working. Tiny role but you can't miss him.

After catching her loathesome husband in bed with another woman, Melanie Leroy (Talia Shire) makes sure he meets with a tragic "accident". Melanie then sets out to find her true Prince Charming. Luckily for her, an Aunt has left her an entire apartment building in sunny Los Angeles.

Upon her arrival, Melanie realizes that some rather unsavory people live there, including the Super, named Pepper (Bruce Weitz). However, it's not long -about ten seconds in fact- before Melanie happens upon the man of her dreams (Patrick Forman). Alas, poor Melanie's psychotic nature soon gets the better of her, causing her tenants to start having their own "accidents".

Obviously, in a movie such as this one, it's all about the title character, and boy, does Ms. Shire deliver! She keeps Melanie's personality on the innocent side, while careening wildly between being a soft-spoken mouse and a murdering maniac. As the bodies pile up, we only hope that Melanie's "true love" will be the one that got away.

Absolutely ludicrous in every way, THE LANDLADY is a genuine rib tickler from start to finish...

Talia Shire whines her way through this extremely routine psycho-thriller, playing the role of Melanie Leroy. Melanie is a mousy middle-aged woman who catches her husband in the act of cheating on her. Later, she successfully poisons him and then goes about trying to live a new life. She decides to take on the job of managing an apartment building that she inherited. One of the tenants she meets is Patrick Forman (Jack Coleman), a hunky nice guy social services worker. She fixates on him, convinced that it's their destiny to be together, and methodically eliminates everybody who stands in the way of her happiness.

We've all seen countless movies like this one, and "The Landlady" brings absolutely nothing new to a tired stalker-melodrama plot. It's not badly made or anything, it's just painfully predictable from beginning to end, showing not the slightest hint of imagination. The main reason it might make anybody curious is to see Shire in a leading, antagonistic role. She never has been a great actress, but at least it looks like she is relishing this moment in the spotlight.

The rest of the actors & actresses are basically adequate, no more and no less. Coleman is a decent enough object of affection, and does take off his top for those who are interested. At least TV veteran Bruce Weitz ('Hill Street Blues') offers a fair amount of amusement as an amiable handyman who occasionally talks to himself, but who is also no dummy, and ultimately smells a rat. Courtney Gains of "Children of the Corn" is barely in the picture as another of the tenants.

Very mild gore and very mild profanity (there are a couple of F bombs near the end) make this barely passable as the kind of thing you'd usually see on cable television.

Supposedly based on a Roald Dahl story.

Five out of 10.

Excusing the Lifetime style plotting, dialogue, and shooting style, The Landlady isn't an entire bust. Talia Shire is fantastic as the titular character who inherits an apartment complex after she poisons her cheating husband with crab meat and develops an obsession with one of her new tenants.

Of course, in classic thriller fashion, once people start to get wind of Shire's less ideal personality quirks, she must kill them to cover her trail and end up with the man of her dreams.

There's some nice darkly comic touches sprinkled throughout, but the script never steps up to the plate and becomes more than your standard made for TV-esque thriller. Even more bizarre and potentially creepy elements like Shire installing a two way mirror in her wannabe lover's room next door so she can watch him undress doesn't go far enough to really creep you out.