The is a smart psychological horror thriller. After the death of her aunt, Jane (Juliette Lewis) occupies her 5th floor apartment to the dismay of her weather man boyfriend George (William Hurt). She runs into problems with the 80 year old recluse on the fourth floor who demands silence. The super (Artie Lange)of the building is a bit creepy and is not all there. The landlady (Shelley Duvall) is a bit of a busybody. There is an elderly couple that are a bit blind and deaf. Mr. Collins (Austin Pendleton) is a kindly old man who likes his privacy, but seems to have taken a shine to Jane.

Jane frequently looks out her window at the interesting tenets across the way, who in turn watch their building. Here lives the creepy locksmith, (Tobin Bell) who services both buildings.

Jane gets threatening notes about her noise from the 80 year old woman who lives below her. Then weird things happen which escalate.

The acting was alright, although I would have rather seen Kidman play Jane. The action moves at a smart pace. The plot was good as it gives you subtle clues as to what is happening, but it wasn't too revealing. Well done.

PARENTAL GUIDE: F-bomb, no sex or nudity. Fans of this film might like "Occupant."

"The 4th Floor" has a neat premise, but it seems as though the whole thing peters out early on. Maybe it's just that there have been so many movies about mysterious neighbors that this one came across as a rehash. It wants to be an homage to "Rear Window"; instead, it ends up being more of a joke. Juliette Lewis, William Hurt, Austin Pendleton, Shelley Duvall (with bleached hair!) and Tobin Bell (Jigsaw in the "Saw" movies) are wasted. As it turns out, the movie got released theatrically in Germany, but went straight to video in the US. Truth is, either they should have written a better script or not made the movie at all. Really, truly saddening.

I was confused from the beginning of "The 4th Floor" because, fool that I am, it never once occurred to me that this young woman talking with William Hurt (who is my age) was actually his girlfriend. She looked like his daughter and in fact, with the 23 year difference in their ages, could have been. Once that was out of the way, I started to concentrate.

This is a pretty scary movie if you like the genre, but it doesn't make any sense. I can understand Jane moving into her late aunt's apartment - it's New York City, after all, reasonably priced apartments are hard to come by, and she doesn't want to move in with her boyfriend. But no matter how reasonable the rent, no one would have stayed in that building. The neighbors are all totally bizarre and someone - she thinks it's her neighbor on the 4th floor -- is tormenting her. Aggressively.

There are sometimes one can put these problems in a film aside and sometimes that one can't. This would be one of the times that one can't. It really stretched all reason. If it was the type of film where one just had to suspend belief, that would have been another story, but it wasn't.

I figured the plot out long before the denouement, although the ending is ambiguous in a way. The acting was mixed. Lewis sounded like she was imitating Jennifer Elise Cox's character on Lovespring, and Hurt's role was beneath him. The supporting players were the marvelous Austin Pendleton and Shelley Duvall who gave wonderful and interesting performances.

All in all, scary stuff, good atmosphere, an okay rental.