Lethal Eviction
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So your looking for an apartment huh? How about Grayson Arms? It’s an attractive little place where if the tenants act up too much, then they’ll just be killed off. If you ask your neighbor to turn down the music, and they do not, well.....vacancy!! That’s what we are looking at here in the film “Lethal Eviction”. All the characters could be the killer in this who-done-it. Instead of what could have been a low budget slasher of the week, we end up with a well acted, psychological thriller.

After the owner of Grayson Arms dies (aka killed), a young woman purchases the place. She realizes though that the tenants have rent control. Luckily though, this doesn’t last long. Tenants keep showing up dead, and she is the main suspect. On the bright side though, there goes the rent control. In a apartment building filled with “characters”, it could be anyone. That is one thing that this movie does well.

If the killer wore black leather gloves to murder it’s last victim, then in the next scene a character would be wearing black leather gloves to go jogging in. Is it them?!? Well, the killer had gloves, and they looked just like those!!

While scenes like this frequented the movie, and were too obvious for anyone to take seriously, it was a lot of fun to pick out.

There is also a “spin” to the normal killer in an apartment building. Sure the “spin” is not something that is all that new to movies, I didn’t see it coming though till about ten minutes before the unveiling. What is great about this though, is there are hints in the dialogue that led me to believe what was happening. Before the obvious, here’s-what’s-going-on-for-you-slow-people moment came, the characters would drop a sentence here or there that I would pick up on. This is something that I thoroughly enjoyed. That is a great compliment to the writer Gary Barkin. The characters, and story were top notch. I cannot compliment the writer enough. In fact.....

Have a seat with Rufus for a moment ***
Writer. How are you doing? Good, that’s good. Well I just want to say that you did a great job. You took an idea that was stale, and smelled like rotten garlic, and came out strong. You said “Hey. I know this idea is nothing new. Guess what though? I’ll make it the best stale story out there. In fact I’ll throw so many great ideas, wonderful dialog, new twists, and great characterization into this stale story, that it will make this a complete new idea.” Well, you succeeded my friend. What could have been another rehash of every DVD on the market, became a great film, with it’s own story and ideas. Kudos to you. Wanna write for a website? ***

The writer wasn’t the only one that made this movie enjoyable. The actor’s were top notch. For a film that went straight to video, I was surprised at the people in it. Stacey Dash, Michael Bowen, Michael Learned, James Avery all did a great job. If you do not recognize their names, don’t feel bad. Neither did I at first. You will recognize their faces though. Even the people that I did not recognize were great. Jennifer Carpenter, Andy Michaels Jr., Marshall Cook... it was just a surprisingly well acted bunch. My one complaint however with the actors is Judd Nelson. I could not tell if he was,

A. A bad actor. (I’ve seen him in many other movies, and I don’t think you can lose your ability. You rocked in The Dark Backward Judd)

B. Bored (Maybe he didn’t enjoy the movie as much as me.)

C. Creepy. (Maybe that’s how his character was supposed to be)

Either choice, it just did not sit right with me. Overall I recommend this movie highly. I actually cared about the characters in this film. Some I wanted to die, but I cared enough about them to wish them to die. The “twist”, like I said, isn’t that much of a twist in movie terms, but it did a great job keeping that information hidden till they were good and ready to let us in on the secret.
If that twist wasn’t enough for you, then they throw one in at the very end, for good measures. I definitely didn’t see that one coming. The movie is fun, and has you second guessing yourself a couple times. Pick this one up.

I give this an easy 4 cans.

Added:  Wednesday, June 01, 2005

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