The Perfect Tenant

It was strange seeing Earl Holliman playing an old man having a heart attack: I remember him as a two fisted hoss playing alongside The Duke and other action heroes from the past. Good to see Linda Purl again also; can't forget her memorable performance as Superbitch putting the bad hurt on Jane Seymour in "The Absolute Truth". This film, however, will not find a place on my list of favorites as it was merely a run of the mill multiple murder yarn. It was nevertheless entertaining and well done - just bland. The sins of the father were visited on the son who grows up to be a total nutcase who plans revenge on an innocent woman for his father's suicide. Max Caulfield was effective as the smiling tenant with a heart of evil.

Jessica, a working mother and landlady has got to be the most dumbest character I've seen in a film. She took on a new tenant without checking him and then dropped her daughter into trouble by informing this evil tenant what she heard. This woman and her moron father ignored the warning alarms that tenant was giving off. Only the daughter grew suspicious but her mother wouldn't believe it. A silly and predictable film. Also it annoys me that Hollywood thinks mental illness is evil and that evil runs in the family.

The title is a dead giveaway, obviously this guy is anything but the perfect tenant, in fact he is a psychopath hellbent on revenge. The film begins with a nine year old boy witnessing his father's suicide. Fast forward and it soon becomes clear why the old man took his own life, and what his son wants. The plot is fairly straightforward but it does get a bit complicated until we realise his sister is working with him undercover in a manner of speaking. After locating the woman they hold responsible for Daddy topping himself, their plan is to murder her father, disguising his death as a heart attack, fleece her of the life insurance money, and then, well, you know what is supposed to come next.

The best laid plans of mice and psychos don't always go like clockwork, and this one has a few problems to contend with en route, including a crazy girlfriend who turns up unannounced making a scene, and his sister not having the stomach to go through with their plan, in reality his plan.

"The Perfect Tenant" isn't a bad film, but bad guy Maxwell Caulfield is so creepy as Danny you have to wonder if any woman in her right mind would let him through the front door, much less rent him an apartment.

i have to admit i'm not a real fan of thriller movies or any movie with violence (but i liked Silence of the Lambs!)...I'm mostly into romance movies like When Harry met Sally, etc. But I really like Maxwell Caulfield (I don't care what anybody says, he was good in Grease 2!) and Linda Purl is always good and so pretty to look at (rememebr her on Happy Days?) So I rented Perfect Tenant and I really enjoyed it. Maxwell is so bad. I mean this in a good way. He's a bad guy. HE's really creepy and sinister. I watched the movie alone and had to make sure my doors were locked. Maybe I'm just paranoid, who knows. But I liked this movie and recommend it!

"The Perfect Tennant" can perhaps best adequately be summarized as a run-of-the mill thriller. While it is not unwatchable, it is not particularly good either and it contributes nothing to the genre

Most of the actors perform their roles well. Maxwell Caulfield does a good job in portraying a psychotic and cold-blooded individual haunted by memories of his childhood and determined to act upon his beliefs. Earl Holliman is also excellent and very convincing as Jessica's father and gives a great deal of depth and dimension to his character –even though it is a relatively minor one in the whole scheme of the movie. Tracey Nelson does a fine job in her role as a mental patient who is being used and manipulated by Caulfield The actress who plays Caulfield's character's sister also improves in her acting toward the end of the movie.

But unfortunately Linda Purl does not perform well in her role as one of the major characters. She appears much too stiff and wooden and lacks the depth and the emotion required to be a success in that particular character role. The same is true of the actress who plays her daughter.

In all fairness to the actors and actresses, however, they are not given a very good script to work from. The dialogue is quite often clichéd and tedious and some of the one-liners are so melodramatic and over the top that they are absolutely hilarious. The whole plot is predictable if you're a fan of the genre and you can more or less guess what will happen long before it unfolds. And the first part of the movie is disjointed and confusing and hard to follow Probably due to the performance of Caulfield and the supporting cast against all the odds, this movie is not as bad as it could be. But there are much better movies in this genre –"The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" comes to mind