Very low budget affair that I'm probably grading a bit too high based on the early promise it shows and the clear heart and desire the makers put into it. All that said, the movie ends up being a bit of a mess that drags on too long. At 1 Hour and 36 minutes, the movie could have easily cut off 20-25 minutes worth of stuff and been a much funner and tighter affair, especially the 2nd half.
The Landlord starts fine and fun enough, with the premise that a couple of demons are occupying a dudes apartment building and eating every new tenant he gets. It's clear from the get go there is very little budget, as the graphics and special effects are very low rent, but they work in the setting the movie starts out in, it's all very light and fun and forgivable. You understand the constraints the film makers are working under and you cut them some slack.
But from there the movie branches out into other story lines involving the landlords sister, who plays a cop, and has a deal with monsters who roam the streets. She provides them with scumbags to munch on, they provide her with all the cash and loot they get from the drug dealers and garbage they eat. It's not that that isn't an interesting story, and it has it's humorous and fun parts, it's even a little bit sexy when the sister and her partner have sex in the cop car. The problem is that it forces an abundance of scenes that rely on chase and gore, when the film clearly had the budget or technical know how for either. I can forgive clumsiness and no budget, but it seemed like they shoehorned a lot of scenes that exposed themselves into the movie and that I can't forgive. When the shortcomings add to the fun of the film it's ok, when they detract from it, it's not. Sometimes less is more.
Back to the landlord. A cute new tenant comes by and he finally decides he's had enough of the demons. The setup to this is good, as the chick who plays the tenant is cute but not crazy sexy and is pretty good given the material. The last 30 minutes of the movie descends into more bad effects and stuff that by this point pretty much lost me. It was just too much to sit through.
In the end a fun spirit and some laugh with, instead of laugh at, low budget budget fun sort of eats itself and becomes bigger and attempts to be grander than it should be. Still a nice effort though and I'd watch another movie by whoever made this if they had a bit more of a budget behind them.
I can't really recommend it, but I aint gonna diss it either. The Landlord has some good ideas, just not the tools to pull it off correctly.
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