The Landlady

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.

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.

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...

There are some unintentional laughs in THE LANDLADY as the plot gets more and more absurd--but it does hold the attention as you keep wondering how this lady's killing spree will end. Talia Shire does a credible job of making the title nutcase a frighteningly obsessed creature as she goes about plotting her next kill.

She plays a landlady obsessed with a hunky man she accidentally bumps into--on the first day of taking over as manager of a seedy looking apartment building. It's love at first sight (on her part) and she quickly decides that he will fill the void left by her husband whom she has efficiently murdered after finding out he cheated on her.

Thus the plot is set into motion as her obsession for her neighbor reaches titanic proportions. Saddest and funniest sequence has her eating popcorn while she stares at her neighbor through a two-way mirror while he disrobes. As the hunky neighbor, Jack Coleman does an excellent job--although it's hard to understand why he didn't fend off her designs on him a bit earlier. After all, her signals were not exactly subtle.

A watchable little film that has some gripping moments as Talia gets more and more over the top in her quest for fulfillment. None of it seems real and some of the lines and situations are laughable--but just try to look away!!

Summing up: a minor thriller with tongue in cheek approach to a serial killer's shenanigans.

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.