‘Tenants’ is a Mostly Solid Horror Anthology [Review]

In my opinion, anthologies work perfectly in the horror and science fiction genres. This it true of novels from authors like Stephen King and Clive Barker. They also work effectively on television, like The Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt and Black Mirror series. And of course, in movies, like Creepshow, V/H/S or Trick ‘r Treat. I would say the inherent strength of brevity and going into something knowing there will be a quick payoff to something that you really don’t need to invest a lot of time in makes short/anthology stories in the genre all the more effective.

Tenants, is from the writing/directing team Jonathan Louis Lewis, Sean Mesler, Blake Reigle, Mary O’Neil and Buz Wallick. The film  is a horror anthology very much in the vein of the aforementioned Trick ‘r Treat. Tenants consists of seven interconnecting short stories of a group of people who all live in the same building. But each of them deals with unexplainable and horrific scenarios. Much like Trick ‘r Treat, there is a central character, Joni, played by Mary O’Neil, who serves as the connective tissue in between stories while roaming the apartment complex looking for her sister. Unbeknownst to the audience why she is doing so, until the finale. Tenants has some really effective short stories, with some others that didn’t quite hit for me. So, let’s get into it…

I love the short story/anthology format. So, Tenants already had me by the throat before it really even began. All of the stories in Tenants deal with unique apartment complex dwelling scenarios, with a hint of social commentary. But mostly just simple and melodramatic stories.

Acting Rash

The first story shown, Acting Rash, stars Christa Collins as Amber, who was a former child star actress. She is now trying to regain that apparently lost glory. Acting Rash is social commentary spliced with comedic and visceral body horror. Because of Amber’s blind ambition, she doesn’t even really see or hear her partner, William, when he is in her presence.

When getting a call from her agent, Amber learns that she did not get a part for something she auditioned for, but then quickly pivots to the next opportunity presented to her, and in true desperate actor style, that previous “role of a lifetime” is so far in the past, and this new “role of a lifetime” will actually be the one to change her life. But unfortunately for Amber, she breaks out with a crazy and disgusting skin rash on her face. She tries desperately to get rid of this rash, with makeup and special effects in this sequence being great. But she then morphs into something more sinister. This story in particular is a well-structured, simple short story and worked great in this format, which then set the tone for the rest of the movie.

The storytelling in each of the subsequent short stories in Tenants are mostly simple. They contain humor elements, plenty of gore, and a good amount of heart in some of the segments.I went in expecting mostly splatter stories with plenty of body horror and violence, and little to no heart. But my favorite stories in Tenants were more rooted in psychological horror with a thematic focus on death, grief and personal conflict…

The Photograph  

To expand on that, out of the seven stories there were two that I really enjoyed. First, The Photograph. The Photograph stars Miranda Cover as Katherine and Douglas Vermeeren as Leonard. Leonard is a seemingly lonely tenant at this apartment complex and while moseying around his flat the audience is then introduced to a plethora of pictures hanging in one of Leonard’s rooms.

All of the pictures are of the same girl, Katherine. Katherine’s ghost also seems to be haunting Leonard. As it turns out, Leonard murdered Katherine. The Photograph proceeds to be a pretty haunting little, short story that, albeit simple, worked really well because of the way it was structured, the way it was filmed and because it was a heartbreaking story. Easy to invest in because of those three factors. Stories like this really make you think about what could actually be going on potentially right next door. nd also to be wary of who might be next door…

You’re Not Supposed to be Here

The other story that I thought worked very well was You’re not supposed to be Here. It was the overarching story that would progress in between the other stories. It also serves as the finale to the movie as a whole. Like The Photograph, You’re not supposed to be here is a lot more melodramatic than the other stories in Tenants. You’re not supposed to be here is very self-explanatory. The subject and theme of this story is that the Joni character, again, played by Mary O’Neil, was in fact not supposed to be at this apartment complex.

Throughout the intermittent periods between the stories in Tenants, Joni is looking everywhere for her sister. But she is also being chased by a shadowy figure. At the end of Tenants, the reasoning for this wild goose chase finally pays off. Joni finds her sister, but where they are and why Joni doesn’t belong finally comes to a head. The end of this vignette ends up being pretty emotional as well and is an interestingly devastating way to look at loss, and handling grief. Both of these stories, The Photograph and You’re not supposed to be here, have solid build up that leads to satisfying payoff…

Some of the stories in Tenants simply don’t work. 

On the flip side, there were a few stories that just didn’t quite hit for me. The first one being Hoarder, which was a story about a grieving old widow, Jude, played by Myles Cranford, who hangs onto anything and everything that belonged to his now deceased wife. Even her trash. After a tense visit with his son, who shows up trying to get him to snap out of his grief, and clean up his apartment, the trash comes to life and forms a giant trash monster. Jude ends up getting swallowed up by the trash monster both literally and figuratively.

I understand that the conclusion was the whole message of the story, but I just found this segment to be unentertaining and lacking in emotional weight that was crucial for this story to work. The special effects were pretty spectacular. But I thought Hoarder wasn’t that interesting of a story in general… 

Need Anything 

I also felt this way about Need Anything. Need Anything stars Clarke Wolfe and Fayna Sanchez as a pair of roommates who are in constant conflict, one very uptight and one very loosey goosey. After one of the roommates devises a deadly plan to remove the other from the picture entirely, violent conflict ensues. But the silliness of the finale felt like a badly missed punchline by a comedian. My reaction was akin to if I got smacked in the back of the head by a big stupid clown. I was removed entirely from the story at that point. Maybe it’s because I’m not a horror-comedy guy, but the lack of seriousness or even any sort of stakes at the end of that story had me frustrated. Especially considering it wasn’t funny at all.

What I liked most about The Photograph and You’re not supposed to be here is that there were actions, but also consequences. The drama and soul is created by that cause and effect. Need Anything was obviously poking fun at roommate culture and was intended to just be a comedy of sorts, and although the violence was enjoyable, kind of, it just felt like a pointless exercise altogether…

The performances throughout Tenants were all simply on brand. Nothing that would ever sniff a a Saturn Award, but also nothing distractingly bad enough to earn a Razzie Award. I would say the performers were all solid enough to make the movie work…

The technical side of Tenants 

On the technical side, Tenants was a really well thought out concept that was then executed very effectively. The filmmakers clearly have the ability to take a presumably low budget and make the product look more expensive than it probably actually was. From the set designs that were unique but also consistent, to the really great special effects and of course the filming technique, Tenants was a movie that was made by professionals. And that really is the biggest reason why Tenants is a very watchable movie…

I was frustrated while watching Tenants at certain points. I thought that it really tried to lean into being a lighter, more comedic movie. If these same stories were written with a bleaker, darker viewpoint, while still maintaining some humor but toning that aspect down then I can’t help but think that Tenants would have been much more entertaining to watch. There was a thrill factor missing in each story. That prevented me from fully investing in the stories. That, in turn, lessened the payoff at the end of each segment.

Speaking to Tenants’ Flaws

I don’t like to criticize something that I actually did like. But if I had to be super critical, I would say that the writing was the weak link in Tenants. My favorite way to simplify storytelling and critique storytelling fairly is to judge it by cause and effect. What was causing the conflict, and how did that conflict get resolved, or conclude without resolution?

Storytelling without cause and effect would just be stuff happening on screen for no rhyme or reason. There were too many stories in Tenants where stuff was simply just happening. Even though these are short films that are part of a larger anthology movie, there was so little actual conflict in a few of these stories that it was sometimes hard for me to care about what was going on.

The cause and effect theory proves itself with the two shorts that I enjoyed the most, where a character did something that led to something else happening that then led to a conflict where in the vignette The Photograph, for example, the characters are working on opposite spectrums of despair and guilt, honesty and pure delusion, the conflict comes from what happened, and what happened has a lasting effect on both characters.

In You’re not supposed to be here, a character does something that leads to conflict where that character needs to make a hard choice. In these scenarios, the audience is buying into that conflict, so the payoff works. For the stories that didn’t quite connect for me, stuff was happening, there were plenty of causes, but without really any stakes, then there can be no effect. This prevents buy-in. 

On the whole, Tenants has plenty to offer

Overall, I did enjoy Tenants for what it was. I love the anthology format. I liked the filmmaking and performances.  Additionally,  I was amused by some of the action and was satisfied by some of the conclusions. REspecially at the end of the movie. With all that said, I’m not a big horror comedy guy. So, that energy is not going to work for me regardless. I deeply respect what the filmmaking team was able to accomplish with the resources that they had, and I look forward to seeing what any of them have planned in the future.

I would recommend Tenants to anyone who has an appreciation for great filmmaking and special effects, but not as much for those looking for a deeper, more engrossing story. But I have always leaned more towards storytelling strength being the writing, and not as much the visuals. So, to conclude, even though Tenants wasn’t entirely for me, I still enjoyed it and respect the effort…

Wicked Horror Rating: 6/10

From 13th Floor Productions & EXIT 19, Tenants will be available on VOD as of September 24th, 2024.