There are movies about lonely old ladies that break your heart. Room for Rent is about a lonely old lady who breaks into your psyche, rearranges the furniture, and leaves a faint smell of Airwick and homicide.
And somehow, it’s still… kind of boring.
This is a film that looks at the “older woman slowly losing her grip” subgenre—Misery, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?—and says, “What if we did that, but with fewer thrills, less tension, and the emotional subtlety of a Facebook chain post?” Then it casts Lin Shaye and just sort of assumes she can carry the entire movie on sheer creepy grandma energy.
Spoiler: she almost can. But the script fights her every step of the way.
Meet Joyce: Widow, Landlord, Red Flag Factory
Joyce Smith (Lin Shaye) starts as your standard slightly odd, overly chatty older housewife. Her husband Fred dies in a “slip and fall” off the roof, which the movie treats like a sad accident. Personally, the way Joyce behaves later makes that roof incident look a lot more… flexible in interpretation.
At probate, Joyce discovers that Fred was not only dull but also deeply bad with money. He’s left her almost nothing: a house, $2,200 in savings, and a mountain of debt. No pension, no assets, just vibes and disappointment. Thanks, Fred.
Stranded in late-life financial crisis, Joyce wanders into a library and finds a magazine explaining how to turn your home into a BnB. The entire film hinges on this moment. Not a deep psychological break. Not a supernatural trigger. A how-toarticle. Forget cursed artifacts—this woman is radicalized by Better Homes & Gardens.
Bed, Breakfast, and Yikes
Joyce converts her house into a cozy little BnB. First guests: Sarah, a young writer, and her husband, Edward. Joyce bonds with Sarah immediately, in that boundaryless way where “kind older woman” quickly morphs into “emotionally thirsty stranger who overshares while handing you baked goods.”
Edward, to his credit, takes one look at Joyce’s vibe and votes with his feet. The couple leaves, but Sarah and Joyce keep in touch via letters, which is already a red flag. Nobody writes letters unless they’re romantically confused, emotionally unstable, or in a period drama.
Then comes guest number two: Robert, a handsome younger guy with “I’m either a love interest or a criminal” eyebrows. Joyce, who apparently hasn’t experienced human affection since the Carter administration, proceeds to fall harder than Fred off the roof.
She:
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Cooks elaborate meals
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Dresses up for him
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Buys a satellite dish so he can watch football
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Hovers around like a ghost whose unfinished business is emotional dependency
If you’ve ever stayed in a too-quiet Airbnb where the host “just happens” to be in the kitchen every time you walk by—congrats, you’ve seen the scariest part of this movie.
Love Triangle from Hell (and a Hallmark Movie)
Things get uncomfortable when Sarah returns, newly divorced, and decides to spend the night. Sarah and Robert flirt, drink, and promptly hook up. Joyce walks in on them and has what can only be described as a full-body internal scream disguised as brittle politeness.
The rift begins: Joyce feels betrayed by Sarah and humiliated by Robert. In her mind, she’s the main character of this love story. In everyone else’s reality, she’s the landlady.
The film could have turned this into delicious psychological horror—an older woman’s obsession spiraling into violence as she loses control of “her” narrative. Instead, it sort of lurches from scene to scene, sometimes creepy, sometimes awkward, mostly repetitive. It’s like Fatal Attraction if the rabbit boiling got replaced with passive-aggressive scrapbooking.
Exposition by Neighbor, Murder by Pillow
Neighbor Gladys—who exists solely to provide backstory like a human Wikipedia page—meets Sarah and infodumps Joyce’s tragic past:
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Joyce has “split thinking” and abandonment issues (clinical term: “this script has no idea how mental illness works”)
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Fred forced Joyce to have an abortion
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There is unresolved grief, rage, and loneliness simmering under that cardigan collection
So of course, what happens next?
Joyce visits Gladys and suffocates her with a pillow.
Not after a big emotional confrontation. Not after a shocking revelation. Just… “thanks for the backstory, now die.” It’s the cinematic equivalent of closing a tab you’re done reading.
Gaslight, Girlboss, Graveyard
Robert, noticing Sarah’s sudden absence, asks Joyce where she went. Joyce does what she does best: lies.
She tells Robert that Sarah went back to her husband, painting Robert as unwanted and worthless. To be fair, this man should feel bad about something—just maybe not for the reasons Joyce thinks.
When Robert later catches Joyce rummaging through his belongings, she switches tactics and claims he reminds her of her dead son. Yes, she pulls the “you’re like the son I lost” card on the guy she’s been low-key crushing on. Therapy? No. Emotional incest? Absolutely.
Robert buys this story enough to let his guard down, which is unfortunate because the plot is done pretending Joyce is quirky. It’s full villain era now.
The Rape Scene Nobody Wanted
Joyce cooks Robert a special home-cooked meal. She drugs him. When he passes out, she rapes him.
There is no delicate way to describe that. It’s not implied—it happens. The movie seems to want this to be horrifying, but it also… moves on from it with alarming speed. It doesn’t fully grapple with what that means; it just notes it as another checkbox on Joyce’s “terrible things she does” list.
Afterward, Joyce finds cash and cocaine among Robert’s stuff, implying he’s some kind of drug trafficker. This is supposed to make him morally grayer, maybe to “justify” what happens next. It just feels grossly manipulative: as if the film is whispering, “Don’t feel too bad for him.” Sorry, no. Drug dealer or not, getting drugged and assaulted by your landlady is not part of the Airbnb terms of service.
Dear Robert, You’re Screwed
Robert wakes up, finds a letter from Sarah, and finally learns the truth:
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Joyce lied to him
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She manipulated Sarah
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Everything about this house is deeply wrong
He confronts Joyce and packs his things, ready to leave his personal haunted bungalow. Which means, of course, that he is about to die.
Joyce, refusing to let even one man in her life exercise free will, bludgeons him to death with a frying pan. It’s not even a creative horror kill. Just “non-stick homicide.”
Then she sits down and reads the rest of Sarah’s letter, in which Sarah reveals she’s pregnant.
Because nothing completes a psychological horror about obsession like introducing a baby as a plot coupon in the third act.
Grandma, But Make It Homicidal
Joyce, deeply unwell and now in possession of drug money and a vacant house, decides to reinvent herself as… grandmother of the year.
She invites Sarah to stay at her place “while she takes a vacation,” using Robert’s cash to fund her little getaway. Before she goes, she buries Robert’s remains in the backyard and gets rid of his belongings like someone doing spring cleaning with extra steps.
Sarah arrives, clueless and pregnant. She notices Robert’s old room is now locked. What she doesn’t know—and we, unfortunately, do—is that Joyce has redecorated it into a fully prepped nursery, complete with a saccharine sign from “Grandma,” eagerly anticipating the baby.
Roll credits on the unspoken promise of future kidnapping, gaslighting, and possibly baby theft. No catharsis. No justice. Just a freeze-frame on everything unresolved and awful.
Horror, Mystery, or Awkward Character Study?
Room for Rent is marketed as a mystery-horror, but it’s really more of an uncomfortable character study that doesn’t have the courage to fully commit.
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As horror, it’s too tame and slow. Minimal scares, low tension, predictable deaths.
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As mystery, there’s nothing to solve. Joyce is clearly unstable from minute one, and nothing about the plot surprises.
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As psychological drama, it’s half-baked. We’re given trauma bullet points instead of depth.
Lin Shaye does everything she possibly can with the role—she finds genuine pathos inside Joyce’s madness. There are moments where you almost feel sorry for her. Then the script has her do something horrendous and just… shrug at it.
Instead of a complex portrait of loneliness turned malignant, we get “crazy old lady goes bad” with some Lifetime movie window dressing and an ending that feels less like a conclusion and more like the writers ran out of pages.
Final Verdict: Do Not Stay Here, Even for One Night
If you’re a Lin Shaye completionist, Room for Rent might be worth a watch just to see her drag this movie uphill by its ankles. She’s the one piece of furniture in this house that isn’t on fire.
But as a horror film? It’s limp. As a thriller? It’s obvious. As a character piece? It flirts with interesting, then backs away and smothers the neighbor with a pillow.
Ultimately, Room for Rent feels like a cautionary ad for Airbnb:
Warning: Your host may be
– Emotionally unstable
– Dangerously obsessed
– And planning a nursery for your unborn child
Five stars for Lin Shaye’s performance. One star for everything else. Would not book again.
