If you have a thing for so-bad-they're-good horror/suspense/thrillers from the '80s and '90s, do I have the one for you... especially if you find movies about psychopaths and stalkers to be particularly entertaining.
Landlady Melanie Leroy makes for a memorable psychopath. Her relentless stalking calls to mind the terrifying antics of Alex Forrest from "Fatal Attraction." Alex Forrest was a maniac to be sure, but Melanie Leroy has a more subtle evil about her. The kind of moral insanity that leads her to pop off one tenant after the other, while also finding the time to install a spy camera in a smoke detector and install a full length two-way mirror in the wall of her apartment so she can thrill herself watching a male tenant flex his muscles in the mirror.
Admittedly, some of the tenants in the building were so annoying that you can't help but laugh at the various ways in which Melanie Leroy systematically murders them. From the thoroughly unlikeable scam artist of a building manager who doesn't collect rent because she's too busy chain smoking and mating with the maintenance man, to the nasty, demanding call girl down the hall who arrogantly demands new furniture for her apartment, for no apparent reason, because her trashy cheetah-print furniture seems to suit her just fine.
The premise of the film seems to revolve around the unbalanced middle-aged landlady obsessing over one of her tenants, a busy young bachelor named Patrick. She maintains a frumpy, dowdy appearance, casting a disdainful eye on anything she deems to be unwholesome. Yet when Patrick enters the scene, she seems to lose control of herself, engaging in awkward flirtations and eyelash batting. Anything for you, Patrick. She spies on him arguing with his drug addicted girlfriend in the hallway and seethes with jealousy. She's not good enough for you, my Patrick. She follows the unsuspecting goof around, entering his apartment to steal one of his shirts so she can sit alone in her apartment and sniff it.
Yes, the landlady has some problems. Good thing she has her murdered husband's ashes in an urn that she can talk to when she feels overwhelmed by the complexity of her feelings for Patrick. (The movie opens with our troubled harridan spying on her hubby romping with a younger woman in the buff. She kills him. From there she inherits the apartment building and her tenants' fate are sealed)
There is a good build up of suspense throughout the film. You know that the day will come when Melanie finally has a break down and confesses her undying love for Patrick, someone blabs to him about it faster than she can kill them, or he stumbles upon the ugly truth himself. It's only a matter of time. And there are plenty of good laughs along the way found in the one-liners that Melanie comes up with as she eliminates anyone and anything standing in her way. "I'm a good girl!"
This film also brings to mind the film "Crawlspace," another example of psychopathology playing out in an apartment building, with Karl Gunther, the diabolical landlord who is so deranged that you can't imagine another landlord ever coming close to being so completely and uncontrollably insane. Melanie Leroy might be a good match for Gunther, but isn't quite as memorable.
