Life Among the Cannibals

After leaving his crazy girlfriend, Hollywood personal assistant Jasper James (Kieran Mulroney, brother of Dermot) finds a house to rent in L. A. for cheap. The owners (Mason Adams and Bette Moore) are an elderly couple who are very picky about who they rent to on the block and it seems idyllic. Unfortunately, Jasper encounters trouble the first night when his neighbor Troy (Daryl Haney, who also wrote this) blasts bizarre industrial music at all hours. Digging deeper, he soon finds out that Troy might be a serial killer and decides he might be able to use this to his advantage.

Wow, this was a strange one. Director Harry Bromley Davenport spent a decade plus making three XTRO movies, so a dark comedy satire was probably the last thing I expected from him. Sometimes it is clever, sometimes it is a tad annoying (the stuff with the girlfriend played by Juliet Landau), but it is pretty unique. Sure, the set up is similar to The 'Burbs (1989) but it goes in different directions. A strange sampling: After every murder two detectives come to visit Jasper, but they never care about the crimes and always invite themselves in to play cards. Also featuring Wings Hauser as a washed up actor whose face was disfigured when his chin implant was knocked loose in a fight. Yes, really. This got a VHS release in the UK, but as far as I can tell has had no US home video release.