Tenants

Other tenants in the building make appearances before their stories do, which always helps stitch the segments together into one big crazy quilt of horror. The big masterwork monolith in the room here is the emotional patterns in each story and how they contribute to the themes of the wrap-around. The order of stories is placed with the precision of the tracks on a classic rock album, with each song giving a different feeling, so the complete work contains a variety of tones and directions. So, basically, Tenants plays a horror anthology rock opera with blood on the guitar strings.

“…lets you know you have come a across a batch of the good stuff …”

In terms of the nature of the horrors found down the hall, the screenwriters employ an unusual direction that I can only think to describe as observational horror. This is based on the stand-up comedy style that finds a common point of contention held by people in general and does a couple of laps with it. Seeing this applied to horror is of great interest, as it steers to more character-based horror instead of having the situation do all the steering. There is even some rich use of metaphor with the type of horror applied that reflects the character’s inner turmoil. It also allows some of the funniest gross-outs we have seen this side of the Basket Case movies.

I am not a huge fan of mixing humor with horror unless it is done very well, as it is here. One story in particular, “Need Anything,” gets into splatter territory to show the kind of tension that exists in a roommate situation. This is something way too many people will recognize and identify with, what with everyone having to live with others to afford to keep a floor under them. Tenants present a good argument for horror to be used to release the frustrations associated with everyday life. Find it and watch it. You will be floored.