The Lodger



Detective Manning and his younger partner, Wilkenson, are knee deep in a case revolving around a disturbing string of serial murders that appear to be mimicking the historical crimes of the notorious Jack the Ripper. Compounding their frustration is intense pressure from the local commissioner and the FBI, since similar, earlier crimes now linked to the same killer, were pinned on an innocent 3rd party who has already been executed for the crimes.

Meanwhile Ellen and Joe Bunting are currently in the midst of some financial and marital struggles. Struggles that are soon alleviated when a mysterious man named Malcolm suddenly shows up looking to rent their guest house for more than what they’re asking for….



The Lodger is a 2009 American mystery/thriller, and is the… hang on, let me double check… yes, the 5th film adaptation of the 1913 Marie Belloc Lowndes novel of the same name, with the first of course being The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1927 which I watched just last year. Of all the various versions available, this most current iteration of the story is sadly not considered one of the best. That distinction of course belongs to the Hitchcock film and, to a slightly lesser extent, the 1944 version directed by John Brahm, which is also supposed to be very good. At some point I’ll have to re-download the YouTube app if I want to watch it. But until then I’ll have to suffice with this version, because it’s more easily available. It’s… I’ll be honest, I see it has some crappy scores, but it’s not that bad. In fact, there’s actually a couple things about it that I really like. But unfortunately it’s also a little too formulaic and predictable for my tastes, and that kinda hinders my enjoyment.



But first, let’s get the good parts out of the way and say that, at least on the technical side of things, the film is pretty damn good. The movie looks great. Nothing is too dark to see, an important thing to note when a good portion of the film happens at night. The lighting is dynamic and often moody, and they even threw in a few ‘arty,” noir-ish shots to keep things looking interesting. Couple that with the excellent acting from the likes of Alfred Molina, Shane West, Simon Baker and Hope Davis, and you’ve got some engaging performances to go along with the lovely visuals.





Another thing I liked is how closely they linked the crimes to those of Jack the Ripper. Unlike Hitchcock’s version which simply implied Jack the Ripper-like crimes, this film went in the direction of full on mimicking the crimes, with the killer faithfully recreating not only the wounds inflicted upon the victims, but also the manner and locations in which the bodies were found. And because the new crimes are so faithful to the old case, the movie spends a lot of time showing you items from the 1888 crimes, like recreations of the letters sent to police and detailed views of original crime scene photos, including those of the victims themselves. I daresay this film went to more effort to show you what Jack the Ripper did to his victims than some of the films I watched last year that were supposed TO BE about what Jack the Ripper did to his victims.



As for the bad… Well, that’s mostly in the story department. Now, to be fair, the “twist” I liked, even though I had an idea of where the film was headed somewhere around half way through. But some of the other things they did, really began to annoy me.

The characters, for instance, really started to get on my nerves. Because this is yet another one of those films that makes it hard to root for anybody. Part of that is intentional, yes, because the movie is, at least to a certain extent, trying to give you reason to doubt certain people so they can be added to the ever growing suspect pile. Detective Manning is such a controlling asshole that he put his wife into a full-on manic depressive episode,  to the point that she wound up in the hospital. His daughter hates him because of it. And he seems to go out of his way to be as antagonistic as possible to just about everyone he comes in contact with. The police captain does little more than yell and make assumptions. Joe Bunting seems equally contemptible to his wife as Manning does to his, either because he loathes her or just doesn’t care anymore, you pick which is worse. And Ellen Bunting is so desperate for any kind of connection that she’s willing to throw herself at the new, hot renter almost as soon as she sees him. Her at least, you can feel a little sympathy for, since Joe is such a dick and all. But she’s still cheating on her husband, so she’s not an innocent party, either. I think the only really decent person ends up being Manning’s partner. He at least seems to be a nice guy. But he’s so un-charismatic that you really couldn’t care less about wtf he does. And after Manning gets arrested, he just lets him go without a second thought when Manning tells him to, and that doesn’t really help his cause either. Point is, I kinda hate movies that are plotted out like this, because I’d like to have at least one main character I’m not forced to hate while watching these things.



Another thing I didn’t like was how trope-y parts of the movie were. Oh, look, a hard-boiled detective who’s so obsessed with his work that he’s let his life go to shit. Oh, look, a well-meaning rookie who’s been thrown into all of this nonsense against their will but is smarter than they let on. Oh, look, a perpetually angry police captain. Oh, look, the lead detective has been suspended for not following the rules and now has to work the case off the books. Oh, look, a killer obsessed with the lead detective for some reason. Oh, and now he’s going after one of the detective’s innocent family members. Haven’t ever seen that before. Whatever shall the lead detective, that I don’t even like, do now? And stuff like that just goes on, and on, and on. No wonder so many critics hated this film when it came out. By the time it came out most of them had probably seen these same plot points over a hundred times before and were already totally sick of all of them.



Then of course there’s also quite a few WTF moments, and a couple “that’s not how things work” instances as well. The innocent man’s execution, for instance, you know, the one wrongly accused of the crime, happened suspiciously fast. If the victims were killed seven years ago, and you factor in the possible months, or even years, it would then take to get to the trial, and then the time for the trial, and sentencing, and factoring in his recent death, then that means he was probably only on death row for somewhere around 5 years before being executed. And though I’m sure some people would like it to work that way, that kind of speed just doesn’t happen here in the US. It took the state of California four years just to get Richard Ramirez, otherwise known as the Night Stalker, to trial. And he didn’t even die until 2013 (from illness, not execution). So things like trials and appeals take years. YEARS. Unless of course you plead guilty and refuse to pursue appeals, and why the hell would you if you were an innocent party? So that doesn’t track.



And then there’s just about everything surrounding Manning being considered a suspect. The Captain’s only real “proof” that he could be involved is that Manning was looking at Ripper related sites long before the case began 7 years ago. And if that’s all they really had on him, then I better hope there isn’t a string of ghastly murders in my area, because if I get suspected of anything and they go through my search history and see all the sites I visited while watching all those Ripper movies last year then I’m in deep fucking trouble.

But I guess that was enough, and they end up arresting him anyway while they’re searching the Bunting house, because they think he planted evidence (how?). And they cuff him, and go through the whole “You have the right to…” spiel, blah blah blah. But then suddenly they look at the map they found and Manning realizes that his daughter lives at that exact location and she must be the final victim! Oh no!



So, as mentioned above, his partner, who is allowed to arrest him for some reason, goes “yeah, sure, that makes sense and totally isn’t suspicious at all, we should totes go rescue her” and cuts Manning, the guy he JUST arrested loose (good job dude, you’re fired) so that they can jump in the car together to go rescue her. And they must have just, I don’t know, gone around the block or something, because they spot and stop the killer right as he jumps her, and Manning runs after him and they end up back at the Bunting house (were they just around the corner?!?!). Except now the house is suspiciously absent of any and all police presence. Like, WTF? Where did everyone go? Weren’t you all just collecting evidence not 2 minutes ago?!


What happened? Did someone yell “doughnuts!” and everyone scattered and then came back? What the hell?

But whatever, they catch the killer. And suddenly all the police show up again and the Captain isn’t mad or even remotely suspicious that the cop they just arrested 5 minutes ago was let loose all willy-nilly and caught a convenient killer at the same place they had just been searching, even though they had just arrested him because they thought he was planting evidence at that same place. Nor is he mad at Manning’s partner for letting him go. In fact, he seems totally chill with everything, despite being a crabby crab-apple for most of the film. Which is weird, because if MY subordinates had pulled that shit on me I’d have been royally PO’d. But I guess he’s just happy for the night to end so they can all go home.


Also, fun fact: this road doesn’t exist in West Hollywood.

And at this point, while they’re busy wrapping up loose ends and whatnot, I’m still sitting there wondering how they went through minutes of dialogue and plot set-up regarding how they knew the real killer was emulating one of the suspects from the 1888 murders, and how they deduced one of the original suspects was a lodger. Yet it never once occurred to any of them to go, “Uh, hey guys, you know how we were tricked the last time by the real killer when he framed that innocent guy? Ya know, the one the state just killed? The same one he planted all those bloody clothes and the murder weapon on? You don’t suppose that he might be framing someone again, do you? Maybe we should double check?” Or if they did, I’m guessing the answer was a resounding “Nah!”, because how the original killer managed to get close enough to set someone up so thoroughly is never brought up or considered to be a possibility in this case, despite their proven history of doing so once before. At this point maybe everyone was like the Captain and just settled for the easiest possible conclusion because they wanted to go home.



Complaints aside though, this version of The Lodger is still a decidedly okay, middle of the road thriller. But while the great cast does a lot in the film’s favor, the obnoxious characters, persistent tropes, and far too much focus on the various characters’ personal lives instead of on the case itself, keep it from being great. It’s also interesting to note that for an R rated film, there’s actually very little blood, gore or sex in this film. Most of the blood you see is on sheets covering dead bodies, you never actually see anyone being stabbed, and the only nude scene involves a corpse in the coroner’s office. In fact, I think the most gruesome imagery you see comes from the many photos from the actual Jack the Ripper case. Which, to be fair, are quite real and quite graphic in some cases. But they’re also easily available on the internet and not something this movie had any hand in making. They just printed them out. So I suspect that means the film was pretty low-budget. If so, then some of their choices make a lot of sense and they did okay with what they had. But while the movie is okay, there are still much better mystery/thrillers out there, including at least two that are based on this film’s exact same story. So go watch those instead.

The Lodger is available on a variety of streaming services.

The Lodger is also available on DVD.

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