- Directed by: Chad Ferrin
- Written by: Chad Ferrin
- Stars: Susan Priver, Pat McNeelt, Ezra Buzzington
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wAd221SMoQ
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
An old woman on her deathbed confesses the story of her history as a landlady who took special care of her tenants. It’s grim business with quite a body count, but also loaded with dark humor. It’s kind of a basic story, but we both thought it was very good.
Spoilery Synopsis
We’re told the facts behind the “Death House Landlady” who took advantage of old people and cashed their Social Security checks.
Dorothea, an old woman in a nursing home, wants to tell her story. We cut to a man beating up a woman. Later, she whacks him with a hammer and kills him. Credits roll.
She stages her husband’s body in the bathroom and calls 911. “It was that easy. Worked like a charm. No one suspected a thing.”
Dorothea continues telling her story to Patty, and we see that they’re both in prison. She continues by talking about her third husband, much younger and richer than she was. At least until he started cheating on her. The fourth husband wasn’t much better. After all the husbands, Dorothea buys a large house and starts renting out rooms.
Ruth Monroe comes to the house to rent a room, and we see some of the other tenants. There’s a smell that Dorothea blames on a sewer pipe. Dorothea tells the handyman, Chief, to dig a new plot for her planting. Ruth pays $800 for the month; she’s had to sell her house to pay for her sick husband’s treatment.
We cut to Dorothea putting something in Chief’s booze. He’s giving up alcohol and doesn’t want it, but she’s persuasive. As he drinks, Chief tells Dorothea that old Malcolm has noticed things have gone missing and other patrons of the house are turning over their SS checks to her. She doesn’t even wait until he’s dead to bury him.
Dorothea sees that Ruth is in her room over where she just buried Chief, and she might have seen something. This ends up leading to the second poisoning of the night. She then goes into Malcolm’s room to kill him, but he’s not only moved out, but he also threatens to go to the police over missing items.
In the morning, Dorothea finds Ruth’s “suicide” and convinces everyone that it was intentional. The theft problem, however, gets her five years in prison.
While in jail, Dorothea writes to various men as pen pals. When she gets out, she meets a sailor who’s a lot older than she expected. He has plans, but she’s not into that. He’s fired the man she had taking care of her boarding house. He wants to sell her house and buy a boat; he’s already cleared out her savings. He doesn’t live long.
She gets Ismael, the new handyman, to load the body into a coffin. Either he’s really dumb or really desperate and goes along with everything she does. She goes to the docks to get a refund on the boat he bought with her money. That goes badly for the man with the money and Ismael as well.
Dorothea eventually starts renting out rooms to old people again. We meet all the people that we are told are going to die at her hands. They complain about how she’s spending their money, so it’s time to make them shut up. She has the newest handyman dig more grav– er, flower beds.
One after the other, she kills and disposes of the rest of her tenants. One of them, Bert, calls his social worker just before he dies, and she goes to the police. Detective John and the social worker, Judy, come to visit Dorothea. That night, she kills the rest of the boarders.
Judy, Bert’s social worker, is still on the case and threatens to bring in the police again. This time, they find all the bodies in the backyard. She escapes by hitchhiking to L.A. She shacks up with another old man, but this one recognizes her from a new report and calls the police.
Dorothea goes on trial for nine counts of murder which results in life in prison.
Back in prison, Dorothea finishes telling her story to Patty and then starts coughing up blood. The guards then move Patty to a cell where another prisoner stabs her to death. Dorothea dies happy.
Brian’s Commentary
This is surprisingly funny. It’s all just a little over the top, but it’s really well done. Dorothea breaks the fourth wall to tell us what she’s thinking, what she’s done, and what she’s going to do.
There’s no real gore or much in the way of violence, but it never got boring and was a lot of fun. I liked it.
Kevin’s Commentary
It was a good choice making it from Dorthea’s point of view with narration. The movie does have a low-budget vibe, but it’s well put together with Susan Priver perfect in the lead role.
I thought it was very entertaining for such a simple plot.