Anthology movies are a bit of a gamble, if done well the outcome is a beautiful piece like Black Sabbath or Creepshow but if done wrong you can end with something like Four Rooms. As I was tasked to evaluate the works of screenwriters Sean Mesler, Mary O’Neil, and Buz Wallick, I would say that the quality of Tenants is mediocre which, however, is close to what a lot of anthology horror ends up since it is a difficult sub-genre where all the parts never pull together.
The plot of Tenants centers around Joni (Mary O’Neil), who, having awoken in a strange apartment building, is in search of her sister Emily (Katheryne Isabelle Easton). It soon occurs to Joni that, in a seven-story apartment block, this is task that is far easier said than it is done as she traverses floor after floor, meeting the residents of the house – none of whom seem to be without their own particular problems.
Considering that this film had a crew of six and a thirteen-day production time, what it achieves, for the most part, is nothing short of remarkable.
Tenants has some excellent tone and atmosphere with the apartment building modeled in the style of Silent Hill 3 being an excellent backdrop for the action. Its major issue is that certain residents tales are more entertaining than other ones.
Tales Hoarder and Acting Rash are the two that I would, however, highlight since I consider them adequately suitable. They are both concise and simple and perfectly in tune with the horror theme. The Hoarder story revolves around a man (Myles Cranford) who becomes a widower, and his son (Acquah Dansoh) who tries to persuade the father to throw away the things in his house that belonged to his deceased wife. In this short segment both actors go from relaxed to argumentative- and every step in between. Cranford and Danson fully convince the audience that they are father and son in a quarrel.
Acting Rash, the narrative revolves on a child star Christa Collins who grew up to be a complete has been and her agent stumbles upon a job that will require the ‘has been’ to meet the demands and could possibly relaunch her dwindling career.
Everything is going fine until she suddenly gets a freak rash on her face, searching around her flat for any solution to it.
This short works precisely due to the fact that it is on one hand, a humorous contemplation of the ideas of fame and stardom, of the beauty and make up industry, while on the other with ‘screaming’ body horror characteristic of David Cronenberg with strong central performance by Christa Collins where she captures the sad and funny aspects of being a forgotten child star perfectly.
I dare say, these segment sequences are very much Tenant’s A material, because of how the Joni narrative thread that binds all the Joni tales together however did fall short of meeting my expectations, in fact, most of the remaining segments quite pallid to me.
By way of conclusion, there is plenty to appreciate about Tenants, and even with its small production and budget, it is still an impressive creative and well-executed film. Even though most of the other stories in the anthology don’t quite compare to Acting Rash and Hoarder, you can almost feel how much work and heart went into the film, something that even a heartless monster would find hard to criticize.
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