New York magazine editor Nancy (Barrymore) and writer Alex (Stiller) are convinced they have bought the dream Brooklyn town house.

The only trouble is the sitting tenant upstairs - but she's an ancient old biddy fast approaching the end of her innings. Or so it seems.

In fact, there's plenty of life in Mrs Connelly (Essell) - she's not averse to stepping out to Riverdance, likes watching Love Boat at full volume and plagues the couple with a constant litany of complaints.

Initially sensitive to her requests and granting her the sort of patronising indulgence youngsters bestow on bewildered pensioners, Nancy and Alex think they can hack it until her time's up.

But the trickle of problems brought to their attention by Mrs Connelly becomes a flood and soon there's murder on the minds of the reluctant landlords.

After bombing in America, it's all too obvious that hopes are riding high that this will capitalise on Stiller's sterling performance in Starsky & Hutch.

It's not that it's particularly bad but crushingly competent - Stiller delivers the comedy goods in a nice understated way while British actress Eileen Essell draws on Ealing Studio's The Ladykillers for the dotty bat with a will of steel.

However, as is the way with these things, DeVito decides to crank things up and what was a gently winning comedy lurches into gross-out territory before foundering on the rocks of black farce.

Stiller and Barrymore's switch from reasonably tolerant co-residents to psycho-killers is poorly handled with the pacing all too frantic as if DeVito wanted to cram all his ideas in before the climax.

And if you can't see the twist well before the end then you deserve a severe dose of property blight.

Tim Evans