The Horror Is in the Watching
Some horror movies get under your skin. Others make your skin crawl. A Room to Die For (also known, hilariously, as Rancour) manages a rarer feat: it makes your skin pack a bag, move to another body, and change its name to avoid being associated with what you’ve just seen.
Directed by Devanand Shanmugam — a man who, based on this film, appears to have taken “restraint” as both an aesthetic and an acting direction — this 2017 British thriller-horror (emphasis on horror for the viewer, not the characters) is a masterclass in how to take a decent premise and wring every ounce of tension, logic, and life out of it until all that’s left is cinematic compost.
It’s supposed to be about a young couple trapped in a creepy old couple’s home. Instead, it’s a 90-minute PSA warning filmmakers what happens when you confuse “atmosphere” with “absolutely nothing happening.”
Plot: Airbnb From Hell, but Without the Fun
The setup is classic horror fodder. Marcus (Michael Lieber), a stand-up comedian whose act seems to involve standing up and making no one laugh, and his girlfriend Jill (Loren Peta), move into a cheap room offered by an elderly couple, Henry and Josephine Baker (Christopher Craig and Antonia Davies). You can tell they’re sinister because they’re old, British, and smile too much — three red flags in any horror film.
The young couple wants to save money. Henry and Josephine want… well, that’s never entirely clear. To murder them? To play passive-aggressive landlady and landlord until the lease is up? To collect human renters like Beanie Babies? The film doesn’t say, and by the time it pretends to, you’ll be too numb to care.
Tension supposedly builds as Marcus clashes with Henry, the house gets mysterious phone calls, and a strange tramp named Gary (Jon Campling) wanders around looking like he’s lost both his home and his script. The movie promises a sinister twist — perhaps the Bakers are cannibals, cultists, or psychic vampires feeding on Marcus’s dying comedy career.
But no. The movie’s “mystery” is more of a vague shuffle toward nonsense. There are police, phone calls, hallucinations, and trams (yes, trams — apparently menacing public transport is a new horror trope), and then — poof — Marcus and Jill vanish. The end.
The credits roll, leaving the audience with more questions than answers, none of which are worth asking. Like: “Did they die?” “Were they murdered?” “Did I black out during the part where the movie became interesting?”
Characters: A Parade of Emotional Vegetables
Let’s start with Marcus. Michael Lieber’s performance is what would happen if someone asked a lamppost to portray anxiety. He’s supposed to be a struggling comedian haunted by insecurity and rage, but he mostly comes across as a man struggling to remember why he agreed to be in this film.
Jill (Loren Peta) fares no better. She spends most of the runtime wandering around in mild distress, alternating between pleading with Marcus and giving the elderly couple confused looks. Her defining character trait is “being in this movie.”
As for Henry and Josephine, they’re your standard creepy elderly duo: one’s domineering, the other’s passive, and together they radiate the kind of energy you’d expect from people who own more porcelain dolls than human empathy. Christopher Craig growls his lines with the enthusiasm of someone reading terms and conditions aloud, while Antonia Davies stares wistfully into space like she’s waiting for her next film offer — or death, whichever comes first.
Then there’s Detective McQueen (Vas Blackwood), who arrives halfway through the movie and acts like he’s wandered in from a completely different film — possibly a low-budget Guy Ritchie knockoff. He yells, he postures, and he does absolutely nothing to move the plot forward. Imagine if a police officer’s only function was to fill time and occasionally make you wish for another jump scare.
Finally, Gary the Tramp (Jon Campling) — the film’s designated “mystical homeless man who knows something.” He lurks, he mutters cryptic warnings, and he looks perpetually annoyed that no one else in the movie understands he’s supposed to be the spooky exposition character.
Tone: Somewhere Between “BBC Crime Drama” and “Ambien Commercial”
One of the hardest things to describe about A Room to Die For is how aggressively boring it manages to be while still pretending it’s suspenseful. The film’s idea of tension is holding a shot for ten seconds too long on a hallway or having someone answer a phone very slowly.
You keep waiting for something to happen — a murder, a revelation, maybe a mildly interesting line of dialogue — but what you get instead is long stretches of silence punctuated by the occasional argument about tea.
The pacing is so glacial that glaciers would file for copyright infringement. You could go make yourself a sandwich, come back, and discover you missed nothing except another scene of Marcus brooding in his rented room like a man auditioning for a commercial about depression.
Even the “scary” moments feel oddly polite. The lighting is dim but not eerie, the music swells but never bites, and the camera lingers like it’s afraid of startling anyone. It’s as if the movie were directed by someone who wanted to make a horror film but didn’t want to offend people who dislike surprises.
Writing: A Thriller With Commitment Issues
The script, by Matthew J. Gunn, reads like it was written on Ambien. There are fragments of decent ideas — class tension, paranoia, generational distrust — but none of them are developed beyond a vague handwave.
Marcus’s career as a stand-up comedian could’ve been used to explore ego, delusion, and public humiliation, but instead, it’s just a throwaway quirk. Jill’s character could’ve been a voice of reason or a victim of psychological manipulation, but she’s reduced to repeating, “What’s wrong, Marcus?” in increasingly concerned tones.
The dialogue is either exposition disguised as conversation or conversation disguised as tranquilizer gas. You can almost hear the actors sighing between takes, wondering if they can sneak in an ad-lib to make it sound less robotic.
And the ending — oh, the ending. It’s not ambiguous in a thought-provoking way; it’s ambiguous in a “we ran out of money” way. The film doesn’t conclude so much as stop existing.
Direction: Less Hitchcock, More IKEA Assembly Manual
Devanand Shanmugam’s direction is… well, technically there’s a camera and people moving in front of it, so it qualifies as direction. But the movie has no visual identity, no rhythm, and no emotional anchor.
Scenes start and end abruptly, like someone fell asleep in the editing room and woke up when the hard drive ran out of space. The lighting choices seem arbitrary — everything’s either too dark to see or too bright to care — and the score drones on like a washing machine full of synth pads.
Even the murders, when they finally occur (if they actually do; it’s hard to tell), are filmed with all the excitement of a tax audit.
Cinematography: Horror by IKEA Lamp
Visually, A Room to Die For looks like a real estate video gone wrong. Every shot screams, “Look at this quaint Oxfordshire home — please ignore the bloodstains.” The film’s palette is so gray and beige that it could be used to sedate hyperactive children.
Final Thoughts: A Room to Die For — From Boredom
The biggest mystery isn’t what happened to Marcus and Jill. It’s how this movie got made. With its promising setup, seasoned cast, and title that practically begs for gothic tension, A Room to Die For could’ve been a taut psychological thriller. Instead, it’s a cinematic lullaby for insomniacs.
The film’s real horror isn’t in its violence or suspense — it’s in realizing you just spent 90 minutes watching a movie that mistakes awkward silence for atmosphere and laziness for mystery.
By the time the credits roll, you’ll agree: A Room to Die For isn’t a place. It’s a state of mind — one of despair, confusion, and regret.
Final Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
(One out of five creepy landlords — a movie so tedious, you’ll wish the title were literal.)
