The Inhabitant Makes the Lizzie Borden Legend a Family Problem

More than 130 years later, people are still talking about Lizzie Borden. The axe murders. The trial. The acquittal. The rhyme that somehow turned one of America's most infamous murder cases into something generations of kids could casually recite. Every few years, pop culture finds another reason to open the case again. 

The Inhabitant takes that fascination somewhere considerably more personal. In the movie's fictional story, teenager Tara is a descendant of Borden, and lately her family history has started feeling less like an interesting fact and more like a warning. She's experiencing violent visions and intrusive thoughts she can't explain. Then people in her small town start getting murdered, evidence begins pointing uncomfortably close to her, and the question Tara is already terrified to ask becomes impossible to ignore: what if she's capable of doing exactly what everyone expects from someone with her last name? 

The unsettling part is how quickly knowing the Lizzie Borden connection changes the way you look at Tara. A strange reaction becomes suspicious. An intrusive thought suddenly feels like evidence. Tara starts questioning herself at exactly the same time the movie encourages us to do it too, turning her own mind into one more place where she can't feel completely safe.

For spooky season, that's a pretty effective reason to keep Terror on Tubi nearby. Our true-crime watchlist takes the fascination with real cases in another direction when you're ready to leave fiction behind. You know the Lizzie Borden legend. The Inhabitant wants to know what happens when somebody grows up believing the legend might be living inside her.