"Lethal Eviction" is an underwhelming and dreadful slasher.
**SPOILERS**
Months after a tragic accident, Sarah Swinton, (Jennifer Carpenter) moves into a new apartment to keep an eye on her twin sister Tessie, (Jennifer Carpenter) who's having problems controlling her. When new owner Gus Winters, (James Avery) and his daughter Amanda, (Stacey Dash) take control of the building, the tenets begin to take the changes in as new rules are laid down. As the tenets get more used to each other, new tenet Bill Shepard, (Judd Nelson) moves in who has a history with Tessie, and soon the other tenets start to get killed off in brutal fashion. With more of the tenets disappearing, they start to discover a shocking secret about one of the tenets isn't who they've said to be and are the killer that's been lurking around the apartment.
The Good News: This one here does manage to get in some good moments in when it tries to. This one's at its best when it details the stalking scenes in the end. The main chase at the end, where the three remaining tenets chase each over through several floors of the apartment. That it starts on the second one, goes through several rooms and then goes down to the basement for an extended chase down there as well. The action continues down there as well, with a great confrontation that really does a lot of good for the film. There's the obligatory stumble-across-the-victims routine, the fight with the killer and the revelation of the twist to the others who don't know it. That twist ending, while seen coming from a mile away and isn't that new, still manages to work over a few of the others out there and the characters manage to fall for it as well. There's even a few great deaths scenes, including one set on fire in a pool of paint thinner, another impaled on a mounted reindeer head's antlers, a stabbing in the neck with a butcher knife, drowning in a bathtub of water while the victim's paralyzed and more. All these elements are the only things going for it.
The Bad News: This here is an incredibly underwhelming slasher with a lot going against it. One of the biggest problems is that it's sometimes hard to call this a slasher film. There's way too few a body count here than most would really allow, and that leaves a real dearth of kill scenes available here. The fact that they're spread so far out in the film is another thing to deal with. Because it stacks up the real deaths until the final third of the film and leaves nothing much before then to bump up the kills in the film. This is mainly due to the fact that most of the film is taken up using the story of the sisters and their relationship with each other. This takes up the majority of the second half of the movie and there's a few problems involved with it. The main one is that there's hardly any time in the film for any kills or deaths. This takes up a massive amount of time in the film and this is the biggest complaint about that. When it takes away from what the film's main agenda, which is to provide a lot of horror and scares, having the majority of the film devoted to doing something that's guaranteed not to deliver in those areas, and it really does stick out in the film. The other problem is that it sets up a twist that everyone can see coming due to the very nature of it being used. The very fact of including it in the film means that many know it will come into play, and it does, following through point-by-point exactly without fail, which is a real sad thing no matter what as there's absolutely no way that it will fool anyone. This is done pretty much according to how every version does it with no exception, and that doesn't give it any extra qualities. This, mainly, is the reason for the film's shortcomings.
The Final Verdict: Mostly tied down for several big reasons, this is a really underwhelming and disappointing quasi-slasher. Only the most hardcore slasher fans are advised to check this one out, while it's big handicap will be the one that everyone really hammers it for.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and drug use
**SPOILERS**
Months after a tragic accident, Sarah Swinton, (Jennifer Carpenter) moves into a new apartment to keep an eye on her twin sister Tessie, (Jennifer Carpenter) who's having problems controlling her. When new owner Gus Winters, (James Avery) and his daughter Amanda, (Stacey Dash) take control of the building, the tenets begin to take the changes in as new rules are laid down. As the tenets get more used to each other, new tenet Bill Shepard, (Judd Nelson) moves in who has a history with Tessie, and soon the other tenets start to get killed off in brutal fashion. With more of the tenets disappearing, they start to discover a shocking secret about one of the tenets isn't who they've said to be and are the killer that's been lurking around the apartment.
The Good News: This one here does manage to get in some good moments in when it tries to. This one's at its best when it details the stalking scenes in the end. The main chase at the end, where the three remaining tenets chase each over through several floors of the apartment. That it starts on the second one, goes through several rooms and then goes down to the basement for an extended chase down there as well. The action continues down there as well, with a great confrontation that really does a lot of good for the film. There's the obligatory stumble-across-the-victims routine, the fight with the killer and the revelation of the twist to the others who don't know it. That twist ending, while seen coming from a mile away and isn't that new, still manages to work over a few of the others out there and the characters manage to fall for it as well. There's even a few great deaths scenes, including one set on fire in a pool of paint thinner, another impaled on a mounted reindeer head's antlers, a stabbing in the neck with a butcher knife, drowning in a bathtub of water while the victim's paralyzed and more. All these elements are the only things going for it.
The Bad News: This here is an incredibly underwhelming slasher with a lot going against it. One of the biggest problems is that it's sometimes hard to call this a slasher film. There's way too few a body count here than most would really allow, and that leaves a real dearth of kill scenes available here. The fact that they're spread so far out in the film is another thing to deal with. Because it stacks up the real deaths until the final third of the film and leaves nothing much before then to bump up the kills in the film. This is mainly due to the fact that most of the film is taken up using the story of the sisters and their relationship with each other. This takes up the majority of the second half of the movie and there's a few problems involved with it. The main one is that there's hardly any time in the film for any kills or deaths. This takes up a massive amount of time in the film and this is the biggest complaint about that. When it takes away from what the film's main agenda, which is to provide a lot of horror and scares, having the majority of the film devoted to doing something that's guaranteed not to deliver in those areas, and it really does stick out in the film. The other problem is that it sets up a twist that everyone can see coming due to the very nature of it being used. The very fact of including it in the film means that many know it will come into play, and it does, following through point-by-point exactly without fail, which is a real sad thing no matter what as there's absolutely no way that it will fool anyone. This is done pretty much according to how every version does it with no exception, and that doesn't give it any extra qualities. This, mainly, is the reason for the film's shortcomings.
The Final Verdict: Mostly tied down for several big reasons, this is a really underwhelming and disappointing quasi-slasher. Only the most hardcore slasher fans are advised to check this one out, while it's big handicap will be the one that everyone really hammers it for.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and drug use