The lodger who is the killer

She takes advantage of his absence to search his room. After the killing, a figure looking very like the lodger walks rapidly away. Sixty-five shots in just over six minutes, with no title cards to interrupt.

Hitchcock keeps up the rhythm tenaciously, at one point upping the tension by making us think Mrs. And the news the next morning will serve only to confirm her worst fears. In the lead, Novello never the subtlest of actors gives a stagy, mannered performance.

Even Hitchcock himself later conceded that certain stylistic flourishes—such as the glass ceiling—bordered on the gimmicky. Even so, the film shows Hitch eagerly reaching out and exploring territory that few if any of his contemporaries among British filmmakers had thought to venture into. Before directing his first film, Hitchcock had worked at Neubabelsberg Studios, on the outskirts of Berlin, where Gainsborough had set up a coproduction deal with the leading German company, UFA.

There he had been able to watch such directors as Fritz Lang and F. Murnau at work. His first two films as a director had been made in conjunction with a smaller German outfit, Emelka Studios of Munich. These influences fed into The Lodger, which, with its dramatic shadows, unexpected angles, and incisive editing, often looks more like a German or Soviet film than like one of the stylistically sober, even staid, British films of the period.

Not everyone approved of this audacity. The film, he stated, was unshowable. Montagu was highly impressed by what he saw. Montagu and Hitchcock got together and agreed on a few modifications: a couple of overdark scenes were reshot and the number of dialogue intertitles drastically reduced. That predictability draws us into anticipating the next murder and a kind of complicity with the killer, but Hitchcock uses sex to make things even more morally murky.

The second major change arrives with the character of Daisy. The Daisy of the film lives at home, works as a fashion model — and she is blonde. Hitchcock puts his predator and this alluring prey under the same roof and lets the grim scenario play out, as do her helpless parents, who fail to act on their fears.

Hitchcock may not strictly have created the first serial-killer film, but if we pay attention to The Lodger it does tell us what might happen if we watch too many of them. Then and now: The Lodger reviewed. A Hitch in time: my top 12 Hitchcock films. Hitchcock and the mystery of the tea cup. Restoring Hitchcock 1: how a film restoration begins. Restoring Hitchcock 2: reconstructing intertitles. Restoring Hitchcock 3: finding the best materials. Restoring Hitchcock 4: the trouble with Champagne.

Filling silence: Mira Calix scores Champagne. Back to the top. Archive content sales and licensing. BFI book releases and trade sales. BFI Southbank purchases. Skip to main content. Search for mobiles. Main navigation for mobiles. In this section Get funding and support Search for projects funded by National Lottery Apply for British certification and tax relief Industry data and insights Inclusion in the film industry.

It encounters a gate with a "Room For Rent" sign. The camera glides onto the pathway between the untended gardens of weeds towards what passes in Los Angeles for an ominous house. Then it drops to a close up of a newspaper near the doorstep. Is this a point-of-view shot, with the camera showing us what the person is seeing?

A hand reaches down, picks up the newspaper, and a blond housewife Davis strolls back through the door. What it is, boys and girls, is an imitation of one of Hitchcock's swooping introductions, ripped off shamelessly from "Psycho" and "Frenzy", and that newspaper on which so much attention is lavished and which was of significance in "Psycho" plays no further part in the plot.

Other Hitchcock ripoffs, just from the opening few minutes: 1 The shots inside the house show the blond's mean-looking, greasy-haired, scowling husband Logue eating his breakfast. The camera clearly shows us the slice of ham, the scrambled eggs, the two slices of toast, which the ugly husband is buttering wordlessly. Meanwhile the TV in the background is telling us about the murder of a prostitute.

It all mixes food, sex, and murder, as so many Hitchcock movies did, only this is without taste or humor. She holds an abnormally large glass of orange juice. So she can lift it and drink out of it and we can see the distorted image of hubby through the bottom of the glass, just as in Hitchcock's "Spellbound.

The sound is blurred except for one word, repeated several times, which leaps out loudly at the view -- "knife. I'd rather examine the contents of a spitoon. But let me get a few other annoyances out of the way. Periodically, for no discernible reason, the director shoots scenes in fast motion. Accelerated motion has its place. It was used to good symbolic effect in movies like "Koyaanisqatsi" and even the otherwise dreary "The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Every shot of freeway traffic shows us vehicles speedily zipping by instead of crawling along in a state of fury. There are two scenes of Hope Davis doing housework -- speeded up. And this is not a comedy! Another scene has the camera strapped to Davis's chest, a device which tends to keep the subject at the same distance from the camera and relatively stable in image, while her environment revolves in a jarring manner around her.

Well, it's one of those mysteries that must remain unsolved, like the Jack the Ripper murders. A man sits at his desk in silence. A hand reaches in from out of frame and grabs his shoulder, accompanied by a loud sting on the sound track -- but it's just a friend, who chuckles at having scared his buddy. A pimp is called in for questioning and he wears the feathers and furs common to pimps in s movies.

But why go on? Alfred Molina has a great face, flabby and imposing. Even his name is impressive; in Spanish it means "great big mill. That face belongs on a baritone in an Italian opera. Rachael Leigh Cook's name is listed way up there in the credits but she has little screen time. The chief female figure is that blond housewife played by Hope Davis and she doesn't do badly by the part, as long as it call for a quiet intensity, whether the intensity stems from dissatisfaction with her family or horniness.

Did I mention that this is adapted from a book and is the fourth or fifth remake of the story? All the preceding attempts are better than this one, although this one at least spares us two irritations -- the wobbling camera and the close ups of the screaming victims as the knife renders their flesh.

The ending tries to link the Ripper murders to the Sunset murders of whores but makes no sense whatever. The dark, pretty, talented, intelligent Rebecca Pidgeon is wasted as an FBI agent forced to spout psychobabble that turns out to be one hundred percent wrong.

I speak to you as your psychologist. That will be ten cents. Boy, is this tiresome. Tense film about murders with thrills, chills , suspense and an amazing final. This intriguing and exciting story is based on a successful novel and it deal with a serial killer in L. An enigmatic lodger Simon Baker living in a Guesthouse whose owners are a grumpy security guard Donald Logue and his wife Hope Davis , booth of them involved an uneasy relationship.

Meanwhile two detectives are investigating a series of grisly neighborhood murders , a veteran Detective Alfred Molina and a rookie Shane West. This is a thrilling story about astonishing murders in West Hollywood whose elusive killer is imitating to Jack the Ripper , it has two converging plot lines with various suspects and red herrings. Story's core is interesting and script is dense with information and drama. Good performance by Hope Davis as the psychologically unstable landlady. Excellent Alfred Molina as troubled Inspector engaged in a cat-and-mouse game and fine Simon Baker as suspect lodger who may or may not be guilty of a series of gruesome killings.

The picture is packed with an adequate musical score by John Frizzel and colorful cinematography by David Armstrong. The motion picture is professionally directed by David Ondaatje. Marie Belloc's novel, serves once again as the basis of this treatment that doesn't go anywhere. His inexperience, perhaps, was the factor that this movie probably went into DVD right away, as it appears the commercial run didn't go anywhere since it must have come and gone without much publicity, or word of mouth.

The locale of the story has been changed from London to a rainy Los Angeles, seen mostly at night. The serial killer who is killing prostitutes in a seedy part of town is following in the steps of Jack the Ripper, the famed English killer.

This sick man finds digs in what appears to be an uninhabited garage in the back of a house that has seen better days. The mysterious lodger catches the landlady's fancy; this woman is stuck in a bad marriage. She looks as though she is not dealing with reality, but the attraction the new renter has upon her proves to be too much. When the dead women begin to surface, detective Chandler Manning has to face guilty feelings because the present killer has the same M.

Manning has a suspicion the murders follow the same logic as the ones committed almost a century ago in London. His obsession gets the best of him, making him lose perspective.

The picture fails because the way Mr. Ondaatje presents the story. There is no suspense in most of the action. If the viewer happens to be a fan of the genre, he would notice things that will spoil the fun for him. The director doesn't create enough atmosphere to do justice to what he tried to do.

The talented cast is totally wasted. Alfred Molina and Hope Davis are excellent actors, but the way they were asked to portray their characters is not believable. For one, the detective of Mr. Molina, or the vapid landlady of Ms. Davis, will not add anything to their brilliant careers. Updated and rethought story of the strange lodger in a home that may or may not be Jack the Ripper.

However in this new version the question is the nice man, Simon Baker, renting a room from Hope Davis responsible for the Jack the Ripper like killing in Los Angeles. Alfred Molina is the cop on the trail of the killer.

A very well acted film, with everyone hitting the right notes for their parts. The film really isn't a strict retelling of the story, rather it uses bits of the original to launch off in new directions, certainly Hope Davis's damaged landlord never came from Victorian London. Unfortunately the film collapses thanks to two errors in judgment. He's the good zealous cop who ends up becoming a scapegoat for the failures of the rest of the police.

The material isn't bad, but for a film that is so desperately trying to break the mold of a well worn story that to have him be the only one who understands what's going on and that he gets blamed like almost every other cop drama is too much to ask. It brings everything down. The other problem with the film is that the director is a bit too gimmick happy.

Take for example the early sequence where Hope Davis is eating breakfast and the TV is on and you get fancy camera angles through her glass or an increase in volume when the work knife is heard on TV. You also have fast motion and slow motion sequences and shots designed to look cool.

The best tricks are the ones we never see, unfortunately with this film every one is revealed as if with a neon sign and fireworks. I spent more time watching the director attempt to be clever then I was watching the police try to figure out who the killer was.

This is a film with very good part that are hurt by some very bad ones. Worth a look but only if you don't pay for it. Decent plot and good cast, on paper, totally negated by incompetent directing. Camera angles are all over the place, suspense music is overdone, leaving no suspense.

Cast is made to look like a bunch of amateurs. Ends up looking like your usual cliched slasher-thriller. Just relax in front of the telly and try to figure out what is happening. The actors are okay in their roles. They might not be the best actors ever but they are certainly worth a watch. There are enough turns and twists to keep you guessing in what's going on.

Some people might think there are too many but I thought it was fine. I was only a bit disappointed at the end. I thought it was just a bit too confusing. But other then that The Lodger is an okay movie to watch once or if you have nothing else to do.

Thanks for reading. In this updated version of the famous "Jack the Ripper", who was never caught, saga the crimes committed by a copy cat of his are in West L.

A with L. A homicide detective Chandler Manning, Alfred Molina, trying to track down and, if at all possible, apprehend the elusive psycho. That's before he disappears forever only to resurface some ten years later to continue his what's by now year murder spree. It was in fact Det.

Manning who apprehended a "Jack the Ripper" like killer seven years earlier, Emilio Rodriguez, who ended up being executed for the murder of two L. A prostitutes just day's before the latest "Jack the Ripper" murders were committed!

It soon becomes evident that the latest killings were that of the person who framed Rodriguez seven years ago thus having him, an innocent man, sent to the San Quentin death house! With Det. Manning now more determined then ever to catch this new "Jack the Ripper" copy cat killer he becomes absorbed in what the original "Jack the Ripper" did back in London in the fall of !

That to the point where he loses control of his very shaky marriage with his now mentally ill wife, Margaret, who had a complete mental breakdown because of his obsession with the Emilio Rodriguez case! The "Lodger" comes on the scene in the person of the mysterious so-called free-lance writer Malcolm, Simon Baker, who rents an apartment from the very mentally unstable, were never told just what her problems are, Ellen Bunting, Hope Davis.

Mrs Bunting starts to get very friendly with the devilishly handsome, especially after she saw him with his shirt off, Malcolm in that her old man, husband, Joe, Donal Logue, is never around to pay ant attention to her. In that Joe works the night shift, and sleeps in the daytime, at a wear-house in downtown L.

It's that strange relationship with the even more strange Malcolm that has Joe who's never allowed to see his new tenant, in order not to disturb him in his "work", to sense that something isn't quite right and starts to investigate.

Extremely complicated murder mystery that has both Det. Manning and his rookie partner Det. Street Wilkerson, Shane West, going around in circles trying to catch the illusive killer. As things are soon to turn out the killer is in fact copying not only "Jack the Rippers" cut im' up tactics but also his victims, prostitutes, and even the geography of the landscape, the Whitechaple-Kensington of London, where he committed his crimes!

That the area of West L. A fits perfectly! Were shown that an innocent man was sent to his death for a crime that he didn't commit that had the real killer go free to continue to kill again. That with the police a bit shy in apprehending him in order not to reveal that they screwed up in the first place in letting the killer, by executing someone else's in his place, get off not only Scot-Free but to be able to continue killing!

And that has to be explained to the audience and police by police profiler Dr. Jessica Westmin played by Rebecca Pidgon. It's Mrs. Pidgon who had previous as well as first hand experience in her dealing with psycho killers from her experience of being the jilted wife of that crazed and homicidal lunatic "Edmond" in the psycho-thriller of the same name. Ed-Shullivan 15 November I will say that The Lodger kept my attention to the very end and that I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

But most of the story line in the middle was your typical old crime mystery. Of course Hope Davis takes Simon's cash advance of three months rent and accepts the good lucking Simon Baker as her new tenant. The mutilated murders of streetwalkers start appearing in a similar fashion of the murders that took place seven years earlier. These previous murders were thought to have ended when Detective Chandler Manning played by Alfred Molina arrested the presumed guilty suspect that was put to death seven years earlier.

Now the movie viewers realize that Detective Chandler Alfred Molina put away the wrong guy for the crimes. So the viewers have a few suspects to consider who may be committing these recent murders of streetwalkers that appear to be duplicating the documented murders of the notorious Jack the Ripper. I was not impressed with Alfred Molina's performance as the lead detective Chandler Manning.