When I first chose The Resident, for some reason I thought it was a supernatural horror movie, which is my favorite kind. I don’t know why; after seeing it and reading the back of the case, nowhere is this indicated. I must have just scanned the movie, as I typically do. At any rate, the movie is a simple stalker flick about a woman moving into a new apartment on her own (spoilers ahead).

Hillary Swank plays a doctor who has just broken up with her boyfriend after discovering he was cheating on her. She seeks out a new apartment and is delighted to find an enormous, beautiful place for cheap. Of course, predictably—as with everything else in the film—there is a catch: the owner of the apartment, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, set her up, calling her about the apartment when he decided he wanted her for his own. The rest of the film circles around his obsession with her—with which we are informed of early on, which ruins any sort of suspense that could develop—and her obliviousness to it. When she finally does catch on, she realizes that he has been spying on her, drugging her, and raping her in her sleep.

The movie is completely thin and devoid of the growing tension and tautness it desperately needs. The characters are actually not bad; both Swank and Morgan are wonderful actors and they play their roles fairly enough. There are simply too many holes in the movie, along with too many tangents introduced yet never fully explained. There are plenty of red herrings that simply don’t work (and why should they, when ten minutes later the bad guy is revealed to us anyway?), along with the main character’s stupidity, which is always infuriating.

Why doesn’t she call the police when she suspects she is being drugged? Why does she go after her boyfriend knowing of the danger—and why does she go back to him to begin with after he cheated and she’s already moved out? Again, there are simply too many questions—and too many head-desk moments where you just want to strangle the character yourself—or simply just turn off the television, which I came close to doing twice.

If you want a great stalker movie, skip this one and re-rent Sleeping with the Enemy. Hell, Home Alone would be better. Save yourself some disappointment.