The mountains of Oaxaca harbor the remains of a ravaged and burnt shelter, once home to a psychoanalyst priest who used it to look after savage children, trying to re-integrate them into society. Through videotape diaries and interviews, the truth of what happened is shockingly revealed.

Is Italy really that worth it?  Alice (Alexis Kendra) and her boyfriend Michael (Stelio Savante) sit, post coitus, as he promises to take her on a whirlwind trip through the land of art and architecture despite the fact that he is married. She buys it, but despite being a relatively successful business woman this takes up her time. Worse still is the fact that after hiring a quiet, dejected, loner named Shelly (Rachel Alig) to clean her house, Alice ignores the increasingly strange behavior that Shelly exhibits. Yes, in the new thriller THE CLEANING LADY, based on the short of the same, distracted and dependent Alice sympathetically hires a cleaning lady who soon becomes obsessed with her seemingly perfect life.

Expanding nicely to feature length the script written by star Kendra and director Jon Knautz begins with our flawed lead discovering the quiet Shelly in her apartment performing maintenance. Shelly is timid, and sadly, facially disfigured on account of a childhood accident. Alice offers to hire Shelly to do cleaning for extra cash on the DL and a friendship develops. Well, for Alice it’s a friendship. For the unbalanced Shelly, it becomes obsession. In an entertaining B-story, Alice attends a support group as she attempts to break her nasty habit of dating a married guy. The scenes between she and her sponsor are gold. But this is a horror pic and, well, things are gonna get dark.

Alig’s portrayal of abuse survivor and Shelly is solid, if not a little bit one note. In giving off that ‘Single White Female’ vibe, we get a clear sense of pain and insecurity. Yet, when things go south, and boy do they, I never got a sense of psychotic control over the increasingly dire situation. As for Kendra’s Alice, we are treated to a talented, layered performance. Utterly flawed and incapable of making good decisions, Kendra still makes us sympathize with they woman making all of the wrong decisions. Nicely done.

As things ramp up to a brutal conclusion we do learn of Shelly’s horrible past and what she has endured up to this point. Commendably the flashbacks enhance the story at just the right moments and bring things into clearer focus. Yet in an odd decision third act character Helen (Elizabeth Sandy) pops in as the spouse of Alice’s boyfriend if for no other reason than to provide a simple, utilitarian purpose.

Despite a few odd third act moments however, THE CLEANING LADY is a solid thriller that keeps things mysterious and disturbing until the last. The film is a fascinating study of obsession with virtuous and ill intent and what it is to be accepted. While not perfect, THE CLEANING LADY is an entertaining, disturbing diversion from filmmakers that we are excited to keep an eye on.