Renting can be a nightmare. No one knows this better than tenants in horror movies. Landlords hold all the power, giving them free rein to terrorize, stalk, and impose bizarre rules on the people who live in their properties. What's to keep a deranged proprietor from going after their lessees? After all, they also have a set of keys.

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While it's usually the landowner asking renters to fork up the dough for credit checks and other background research, landlord-tenant horror movies prove new lessees may save themselves a lot of misery if they know the truth about their potential lessors before they officially sign any documents.

Gerald In 13 Cameras (2015)

Gerald in 13 Cameras (2015)

When Claire and Ryan move across the country in 13 Cameras, they make the grave mistake of renting a home from the reclusive and disheveled Gerald. The newlyweds ignore all the red flags about Gerald's demeanor and sign the lease.

Little do they know Gerald has installed tiny cameras all over the house, spying on their every move from his nearby abode. After Ryan begins cheating on Claire, Gerald takes his antics up a notch in this indie thriller.

Anthony Royal In High-Rise (2015)

Jeremy Iron in High-Rise (2015)

In High-Rise, adapted from the J.G. Ballard book of the same name, Jeremy Irons plays architect Antony Royal - who loves in the penthouse atop his 40-story high-rise apartment complex. Not only does this elusive developer maintain a harem of women, but Royal also maintains intense animosity toward the lower-class residents who occupy the bottom floors of his building.

When warfare breaks out amongst his tenants, Royal watches on with disdain and resignation. Eventually, the mob makes its way to Royal's luxury suite, where they plan to let him have it.

Max In The Resident (2011)

Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilary Swank in The Resident (2011)

Produced by the iconic British production company Hammer Films, The Resident stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as a charming, but predatory, landlord in The Rental. When Hilary Swank's character Juliet rents an apartment in NYC from Morgan's character Max, she hopes the move will help her recover from a recent breakup.

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Instead, Juliet comes to believe she's being stalked after a series of strange events add up. It turns out Max has been drugging her and spying on her through secret passages he's built into the apartment.

Chang Chia-Chun In The Tenants Downstairs (2016)

The Tenants Downstairs (2016)

What's worse than spying on one tenant? It's spying on every single tenant in a studio apartment building - which landowner Chang Chia-Chun does in the Taiwanese murder mystery The Tenants Downstairs.

Chang, obsessed with understanding the darkest aspects of human nature, watches his renters from the safety of his penthouse apartment. Chang's tenants aren't average apartment dwellers, either; he's specially chosen each one based on their quirky, taboo, and sometimes deadly proclivities.

Monsieur Zy In The Tenant (1976)

The Tenant (1976)

The dream of living in a Parisian apartment becomes a hallucinatory horror story in The Tenant. In the film, when a quiet man named Trelkovsky acquires a beautiful flat, he finds out the previous tenant, a woman named Simone, committed suicide.

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As Trelkovsky settles in, he is disturbed by the behaviors and mannerisms of his landlord, Monsieur Zy. Soon, Trelkovsky starts to dress and act like the dead Simone, and he becomes convinced Monsieur Zy is orchestrating an effort to drive him into madness.

Dr. Karl Gunther In Crawlspace (1986)

Klaus Kinski in Crawlspace (1986)

It doesn't get much more unsettling than a film that involves German actor Klaus Kinski creeping around in the recesses of an old apartment complex occupied by female tenants. Crawlspace is far from a perfect horror movie, but Kinski's performance as crazed Nazi landlord Dr. Karl Gunther is next-level creepy.

In Crawlspace, Gunther uses the apartment complex he owns as a hunting ground for stalking and preying up new victims. A deranged serial killer, Gunther carries the torch lit by his father - who served as a Nazi surgeon with a penchant for torture.

Charles D. Ellerby In 1BR (2019)

1BR (2019)

Creating a utopian community is hard work, and no one understands that like psychologist Charles D. Ellerby. In the fictional Los Angeles seen in 1BR, Ellerby is the now-dead mastermind behind a series of intentional apartment complexes that, simply put, are cults.

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When Sarah submits an application to live in an available apartment in one of Ellerby's communities, little does she know she's being auditioned to become a permanent member of Ellerby's movement. First, she must survive the intense brainwashing and indoctrination that awaits.

Mark Lewis In Peeping Tom (1960)

Mark Lewis and his camera in Peeping Tom (1960)

The main character in Michael Powell's controversial film Peeping Tom is a wannabe filmmaker who uses his camera skills to spy and prey upon women. Mark Lewis's compulsive voyeurism quickly escalates to murder, and he captures his kills on film.

Living in his late father's house, Mark poses as a tenant while renting out the rest of the rooms to unsuspecting women. When a young tenant in the flat below Mark's named Helen takes an interest in the older man, the poor girl comes to realize she lives in the lair of a madman.

Miss Logan In The Sentinel (1977)

Miss Logan in the courtyard in The Sentinel (1977)

Cristina Raines's character Alison Parker thinks she's struck gold when she stumbles upon the apartment of her dreams located in an old Brooklyn brownstone. Ava Gardner plays the building's rental agent Miss Logan in The Sentinel, who convinces Alison to move in ASAP.

Miss Logan and the brownstone's residents have ulterior motives, though. As it goes with horror movies, the house is literally a gateway to Hell, and Alison is next in line to serve as the gatekeeper.

The Robesons In The People Under The Stairs (1991)

Daddy in gimp suit in The People Under The Stairs (1991)

Wes Craven explores institutionalized racism and economic inequality in his underrated horror-comedy gem The People Under the Stairs. The movie focuses on residents of a mostly black tenement building in Los Angeles who are all evicted by their landlords - the white Robesons who live in an old house down the street.

The Robesons, played by Everett McGill and Wendy Robie, are much more than terrible landlords: they are incestuous siblings who hold a legion of children captive in the walls of their home. It's hard to get much more evil than that.

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