Strong and Moving!

An Exercise In Nonsense

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Total Stranger or Stranger In My House was so typical LMN movie you could almost tell the story without even seeing the film. Top this bad story with bad actors and you got it. Where does LMN get these terrible actors from? Especially the women? Lindsey Crouse as the lady of the house was just terrible. Looking painfully dumb and stupid most of the time. Anyone could fool her. And in the likes of another bimbo, played by Zoe McLellan, she gets fooled into letting the idiot rent a space in her home. Of course the bimbo is nuts. With as much warmth as an iceberg, this actress not only looks stupid but she acts so bad you don't really care. Bad casting on these two ladies. Paige Moss as the daughter at least had some believability. And veteran actor Jay Thomas was so wasted in this it was embarrassing. Then there's the jerk nerd lab assistant played by a huckleberry finn type Jay Paulson. He just went around with this dumb look on his face when he appeared.These unforgettable performances and lousy script made this one of the worst I've seen on LMN. And I've seen a lot of losers.

Got into this flick, just as it was beginning, on an afternoon where I was home with a touch of flu - otherwise I'd have missed it. That probably would have been best.I noticed the presence of Lindsay Crouse and Jay Thomas - both very good performers - and thought this might be worth a look. It proved to be to some extent, but only because it is one of those stories so awful it fascinates.Zoe McLellan has little to recommend her talents, except for her Jayne Mansfield- or Loni Anderson-like bosom. Unfortunately, her acting prowess - at least here - makes Mansfield and Anderson seem to be Garbo or Davis by comparison.The young nut case's white rat, the owner's cat, the young nut case having the owner evicted and restrained in her own home, and a bunch of doophus's (including the young nut case) running around a bio hazard facility, and the absurd conclusion. I kept waiting for at least some scene or plot element to contain at least a modicum of realism, believability or being capable of evoking some empathy/sympathy -- but this proved to be in vain.

This movie was bad. The story was clumsy, it made no sense the way the main characters would behave from one scene to the next. The cast was good for the most part; Lindsay Crouse and Paige Moss were a believable mother/daughter. Zoe McLellan may have been hamstrung by the bad story or maybe she is a bad actress, I'm not sure. Jay Thomas is like Robert Horry scoring reliably for the LA Lakers, a talented veteran underused. The way that lighting and music is used to try and create tension brought me mirth instead. This film is horribly clichéd and very predictable. I cannot compare it with any movies without giving the whole movie away. After ten minutes the viewer will know already how things are going to end. I found this movie boring indeed. It is only watchable if you are a fan of the elusive Paige Moss, or of one of the other stars.

The movie was enjoyable to watch and Lindsay Crouse and Zoe McClellan did fine jobs with their roles. As the movie wore on though it seemed so much like "Pacific Heights" with McClellan as the female equivalent to Michael Keaton's character in "Heights".