Streaming Viewers Peer in at a Thriller That Substituted Star Power for Stupidity

If filmmaking was as easy as pointing a camera at a star-studded cast and then letting their undoubted talent do all the work, maybe co-writer and director Antti Jokinen’s The Resident wouldn’t have been so interminably uninteresting.

After all, the psychological thriller was headlined by two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank, with the ever-reliable Jeffrey Dean Morgan sinking his teeth into an increasingly hammy turn as the erstwhile villain of the piece. On top of that, support came from Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated star Lee Pace, Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis, and the legendary Christopher Lee.

That’s a hefty array of stellar names, and yet The Resident could only rustle up respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of just 32 and 27 percent from critics and audiences, and it tanked hard after releasing almost exclusively on VOD in the United States, with less than $7 million being brought in from an overseas theatrical run.

Then again, streaming subscribers can apparently forgive all sins, which might be why The Resident can currently be found as the third most-watched feature on Hulu’s charts, per FlixPatrol. Swank’s recently-separated singleton moves to a new apartment to begin anew, before she begins experiencing unsettling events that may or may not be supernatural in nature.

Painfully generic despite the presence of Oscar winners Guillermo Navarro and John Ottman as director of photography and composer, there’s barely a shred of genuine tension to be found as things eventually descend into the realms of the nonsensical by the time the third act rolls around.

via Paramount

If filmmaking was as easy as pointing a camera at a star-studded cast and then letting their undoubted talent do all the work, maybe co-writer and director Antti Jokinen’s The Resident wouldn’t have been so interminably uninteresting.

After all, the psychological thriller was headlined by two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank, with the ever-reliable Jeffrey Dean Morgan sinking his teeth into an increasingly hammy turn as the erstwhile villain of the piece. On top of that, support came from Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated star Lee Pace, Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis, and the legendary Christopher Lee.

That’s a hefty array of stellar names, and yet The Resident could only rustle up respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of just 32 and 27 percent from critics and audiences, and it tanked hard after releasing almost exclusively on VOD in the United States, with less than $7 million being brought in from an overseas theatrical run.

Then again, streaming subscribers can apparently forgive all sins, which might be why The Resident can currently be found as the third most-watched feature on Hulu’s charts, per FlixPatrol. Swank’s recently-separated singleton moves to a new apartment to begin anew, before she begins experiencing unsettling events that may or may not be supernatural in nature.

Painfully generic despite the presence of Oscar winners Guillermo Navarro and John Ottman as director of photography and composer, there’s barely a shred of genuine tension to be found as things eventually descend into the realms of the nonsensical by the time the third act rolls around.