The Landlady

In this depressing slasher movie `from the producer of WISHMASTER and THE DENTIST' (how could that ad copy fail to bring in viewers?) , two-time Academy Award ® nominee Talia Shire plays Melanie Leroy, a bitter, unlikable harridan who sniffs other people's laundry and decides to go on a half-ass killing spree after inheriting her dead Aunt's apartment building. Shire spends the whole movie ranting to her dead husband's ashes and obsessing over her nice-enough social worker tenant (Jack Coleman from the NIGHTMARE CAFÉ T.V. show), spying on him with 2 way mirrors and video cameras, and eventually tying him to the bed in scenes that are like a fourth grade class production of MISERY. While this unbearable flick rolls on Melanie offs people with a refrigerator door, an enormous candle stick, a butcher knife, a steamer trunk, a gun, sleeping pills, a dry cleaning bag, and, scariest of all, shellfish. Yes, apparently feeding someone shellfish when they're allergic is sca-a-ary! Move over, Jason Vorhees!

Where was I? This movie. I tried to think of some ways to make it better, but all I came up with was to give two-time Academy Award ® nominee Talia Shire a Muppet © sidekick that only she can see and who can grant wishes. Sorry.

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.

Until it succumbs to slasher cliches in the final reel, The Landlord is a refreshingly different take on the genre. Well written and well acted, The Landlady stars Rocky Balboa's old love interest, Talia Shire, as a sexually repressed (fundamentalist?) Christian who inherits an apartment building in Los Angeles. She proceeds to get the hots for one of her tenants...and nothing will stop her from settling down and starting a family with him. You'll be pleasantly surprised by it all.

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...

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.