Every weekend, the Netflix most-watched list tends to throw up an unexpected movie that captures the imagination of subscribers around the world, and the latest recipient of the honor is 2018’s unsung horror The Inhabitant.
Written and directed by Guillermo Amoedo, a genre veteran who co-wrote Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno and Knock Knock, the Spanish-language film begins as a fairly standard home invasion thriller, before pivoting into something altogether different, completely unexpected, and regularly terrifying.
In an effort to gain a measure of revenge on a corrupt senator, three sisters break into his house to steal money that came his way via bribes and other illicit means, only to hear some unsettling noises coming from the basement. To their shock, they discover his paraplegic daughter has been tied to a bed, and it looks as though she’s been a victim of torture.
However, it soon transpires that she’s strapped down for a reason, with the girl being possessed by a demonic entity that’s desperate to get out and open the gates to unimaginable monstrosities. It’s a hell of a setup, one that’s seen The Inhabitant crash right into the Netflix Top 10 out of nowhere.
As per FlixPatrol, the chiller ranks as one of the 10 top titles in 16 countries around the world, with plenty of viewers tuning in to subject themselves to a high concept exercise in tension with a serious twist, even if a middling 5.2 score on IMDb would hint that it’s far from being a modern classic.