The Lodger is one of those films that tests each character’s ability to read the room. If there is a mass murderer on the loose and someone started acting really shady, would you be ready to make an accusation or keep waiting for more evidence? The way the film plays out, there is only one suspect throughout the movie so you have to decide if this guy is guilty or if it’s a massive red herring. There are a few ways it could play out even with how obvious it seems and in a way this helped the movie stay interesting.

The film starts off by explaining that there is a mysterious mass murderer on the loose. This guy has been exclusively targeting women in dark alleys when they are away from any other bystanders. Unfortunately the city has a lot of fog and nobody assumes that they will be the next victim so people keep going into dark alleys. The main character here is a lady named Kitty who has built a successful career for herself through dancing. One day her house gets a new tenant by the name of Slade. Slade is often going from house to house as his landowners tend to get tired of him for some reason.

The guy runs rather dangerous experiments all the time so actually I think we’ve stumbled on the reason for why he has to vacate so quickly. He is constantly starting fires and burning things. Slade also isn’t very sociable so it is easy for rumors to start about him. For example the mass murderer is said to have a small leather book and Slade has one too. Slade quickly burns it afterwards but that’s an odd coincidence. Then he shows up with blood stains one day but burns those too. Hmmmmm.

As the film goes on, Kitty believes that Slade may actually be the mass murderer but she goes back and forth on this a lot. For the most part you could say that she is hoping that Slade isn’t the culprit. She thinks he’s nice enough and is probably just an eccentric. The maid is the one who has to keep pointing out how many of these coincidences are adding up but is dismissed each time by Robert. Robert always has an answer for everything even if the answers don’t make a lot of sense.

Slade is set up to be the murderer with so many obvious moments that you have to wonder if this is all setting up a massive fakeout. Either way you’re rooting for the cop to figure it all out. John is doing his best to stay on the case and put an end to the murders but it’s definitely not easy. There are just so many places to hide in an area like this and the weather doesn’t help.

John was smart enough to not give away his theory in public though. I was glad that he dodged the question when the main characters were all quizzing him because that would have been a real bad idea. You don’t get to be a big shot detective if you’re known for spilling the beans on everything after all.

As for the main villain, well the film definitely shows him to be as petty as possible. He has a long speech basically trying to say that the women are asking for it and he’s one of those really lonely, jealous guys. The whole thing makes him look absolutely puny and of course that’s the point. He’s only brave enough to attack when it’s one on one in the cover at night and the detective notices that he only strikes from behind. He needs the element of surprise in addition to everything else. This is not the kind of villain where you will have any sympathy for him. You’re just rooting for him to be knocked out the whole time.

The writing is solid though and this makes for a good old school thriller. It’s one of those very basic thrillers like the Raven film that I recently reviewed. There aren’t a lot of twists and turns to be had here. The film isn’t trying to break any records or do anything crazy either. It’s just giving you a suspenseful adventure where you wait to see if the heroes will put the pieces together before dying to this guy. Usually the main heroine may make it but how high will the body count get in the meantime?

This film also has one of those very sudden endings that you tend to see from old films like this one. There isn’t much of an epilogue or any sequel bait for this one. This is a stand alone adventure with a classic beginning, middle, and ending. It works well enough but if I had any nitpicks, it would be that I’d have liked to see more of the police investigation. Lets see a bit more about what John is doing in the background. Maybe have him start to close in on the case before the very end with the footprints.

I’d also have someone challenge Robert a bit more since that guy is the whole reason why this case was so close. If someone had forced him to admit to the possibility of Slade being the killer, then that would have been a pretty decent subplot. At least it would give Robert more of a role in the film because as it stands he didn’t get to do much of anything. He mostly only existed to be a thorn in the side of the maid and to make Kitty second guess herself. None of them had much in the way of survival instincts but at least they had some kind of instincts. Robert had none of that.

Overall, The Lodger is an interesting film. If you were not big on letting a stranger stay at your place, watching a film like this certainly wouldn’t help you get over that fear. Personally I’ve never been big on having roommates in general. Even aside from the danger, I just like having everything set up my way with as much freedom as possible. Having someone else staying over will always change that dynamic. Of course these characters should have done something once there was smoke going through the house but they took a very cautious approach all the way.

Overall 7/10