By Quin
When you get to the end of The Inhabitants, you may ask yourself, how did I get here? I didn’t mean to quote the Talking Heads, but I don’t know how else to say it. The movie I started watching felt like a different movie in almost every way 90 minutes later. Apart from a final shot that wants badly to throw away everything that was built up before it, the final hour of The Inhabitants is creepy, well acted, slowly paced and it keeps giving information as it is needed.
So, what of the first 30 minutes, you ask? Well, they are all setup and it’s all so rushed, like everybody just wants to hurry up and get to the good part. There’s a pre-opening credits bit where a couple is talking before they go to bed. But they don’t turn out the light until one of them says something to the effect of, “Gosh, I sure do wonder what those strange noises are.” And the other one says something like, “I sure can’t wait to go check out the witch museum.” It’s all shameless exposition that tells you very little, and it’s not enough to make you want to stick with it. The opening credits are shown super-imposed over what looks like grainy security camera footage, but here’s the kicker – it’s of the sleeping couple.
The home is actually an old bed and breakfast called The March Carriage. The owners, who are a silent old lady and her young niece, are selling the place. Dan and Jessica are a young couple who have come to look at the place. After some poorly written, superficial discussion about whether they can afford it or not, they smile and say, “We’ll take it.” Of course they will. The couple moves in, and for the next 20 minutes we see all the boring stuff that a young couple does when they move in to a new home. But as soon as Dan gets called away to Chicago for a business trip, the movie does something surprising – it gets good. Jessica has lots of quiet moments with her dog. She meets some of the locals, who give off a dangerous vibe. And there are some genuinely tense moments where she is walking around in dimly lit rooms, heading slowly toward a confrontation with evil.
At first, I saw everyone in this movie as just actors playing a part, but once Jessica is left alone in the house, she finally becomes a fully fleshed out character that begins a transformation. Jessica is played by Elise Couture and Michael Reed is Dan. They both start out as an annoyingly nice couple who say a lot of nothing with a smile. The quiet moments with Jessica leading up to the change that takes place in her, and Dan’s return as the concerned husband trying to figure out what happened to his wife are finally what make you start to care about these people. Once this all kicks in, the tone stays pretty somber and the horror never gets too loud. This isn’t a jump scare movie. It’s driven completely by atmosphere and the performance of the actors.
The Inhabitants was written and directed by brothers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen. They previously wrote the John Carpenter directed film The Ward, which brings me to a point I want to make. I think the Rasmussen Brothers are better directors than writers. If it wasn’t for the strong direction of The Inhabitants, the weak dialogue and story structure issues would have probably collapsed the whole thing.
I’m glad I saw The Inhabitants and I would recommend it if you like Ti West’s The Innkeepers. Don’t expect it to bring too many new ideas to the table, but expect to be pleasantly surprised by a movie that could have been forgettable. Having seen it, I’ll definitely take notice the next time the Rasmussen Brothers direct a movie.
The Inhabitants will be released from Gravitas Ventures on October 13th to multiple VOD platforms including iTunes, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play, Xbox LIVE, Sony Playstation, various cable providers, and more. The film is also currently available for pre-order on iTunes.