Trailer online for remake of early Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Lodger

The Lodger follows the story of a couple that rents out a room to a mysterious young man, who may or may not be a serial killer responsible for a series of grisly neighborhood murders. The Lodger is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 black and white thriller of the same name.

David Ondaatje directs The Lodger from his own screenplay. The film stars Alfred Molina, Hope Davis, Simon Baker, Shane West, Rachael Leigh Cook, Donal Logue, Rebecca Pidgeon and Philip Baker Hall.

Film Fetish Trivia: David Ondaatje directed two short films before tackling The Lodger. One was called Waiting for Dr. MacGuffin, and is described as a tribute to the cinematic technique of Alfred Hitchcock, incorporating references to cinematic elements from the legendary director’s films, including Blackmail, The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train, Spellbound, Vertigo, Psycho and others.

A MacGuffin was also a cinematic element that Hitchcock often sited in his films as a mysterious element, that is never fully realized. In Hitchcock’s own words, it is “the device, the gimmick, if you will, or the papers the spies are after… The only thing that really matters is that in the picture the plans, documents or secrets must seem to be of vital importance to the characters. To me, the narrator, they’re of no importance whatsoever.”

Check out the trailer for The Lodger below.