The Inhabitant (2023, USA)

Poor old Lizzie Borden, despite being acquitted of the 1892 murder of her father and mother in the town of Fall River, Massachusetts to this day she remains perhaps the most infamous of America’s killers, a Gothic icon to rival our home grown real life monsters like Burke and Hare or Jack the Ripper. Jerren Lauder’s new movie The Inhabitant, which is out now on digital, stars  Odessa A’zion as Tara,

a descendent of Lizzie who just happens to be having visions of an axe wielding woman in a lace dress. Is this linked to the legend that the spirit of Lizzie lives on through the generations? Could be because Tara’s aunt has for many years been in a secure mental institution for murdering her baby, so when people who have pissed Tara off start to get chopped up a girl naturally gets curious. So what’s this girl to do other than go and check into Lizzie Borden’s old house (which is now a B &B as it actually is in real life) and attend a séance. Well it won’t end well whatever happens.

The Inhabitant reminded me of that Robert (Psycho) Bloch penned Star Trek episode Wolf in the Fold where Scotty is accused of murder but the culprit turns out to be an immortal entity called Redjac who had once been Earth’s Jack the Ripper, only with quite a lot more blood, violence and screaming. It also has a couple of really excellent jump scares, but on the downside it does suffer from the curse of Tara’s occasionally mumbled dialogue being overwhelmed by the film’s massive sound design. Other than that there’s a nice performance from Leslie Bibb as Tara’s stressed mum and Dermot Mulroney as her slightly creepy dad. The Inhabitant is an entertaining enough movie once it shifts into gear with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing throughout its 90 odd minute run time.

Intriguing with some galvanic shocks we give The Inhabitant a big 555/666 and on our Daily Mail warning scale there is plenty of bloody violence.

The Inhabitant is out now on: iTunes, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Virgin, Sky Store.