Where Sleeping Dogs Lie (1991)

Bruce Simmons is an idealistic but out-of-work writer who stubbornly ignores advice from his agents to make compromises with his work and write more commercially viable material, but he stubbornly refuses to compromise his artistic idealism.. His only source of income is a side job in real estate, but his lack of success there also makes it impossible to pay the rent, and he is evicted. His boss gives him one more chance: sell a decaying Hollywood mansion which was the scene of the horrible unsolved murder of a seemingly ideal family many years before. Although the house still is bloodstained, the bodies, including those of the two children have never been found. The now homeless Simmons determines to give his sexy literary agent and former lover the blood and guts she's been asking for and decides to write a novel about the killings. While he is researching material, a nervous stranger appears at his door and asks to rent a room. Seeing no harm in pocketing Eddie Hale's $350 monthly rent, he allows the enigmatic grocery store manager to stay, but his new tenant soon begins to insinuate himself into Bruce's life and his novel-in-progress,. His agent is able to sell the proposed manuscript to a publisher under the claim that the story will be told through the eyes of the actual killer. Why does Bruce's odd tenant take such a morbid interest in the cold case murderer and his victims? Possibly Eddie is more than the meek milquetoast he claims to be and may have a more sinister agenda.