YMMV / The Landlady

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • The landlady is often interpreted as a sexual predator, even a pedophile, who molests the corpses of her victims. Her comments on the attractiveness of her victims, like complimenting their skin, helps this. "Tales of the Unexpected" arguably gives credence to this theory, as she explicitly undresses her victims before embalming them.
  • It's often common for readers to assume she's a witch. Most notably, the hypnotic sign implies something supernatural could be going on. As seen under What Could Have Been, this might have been intentional.
  • Billy suspecting something off about the tea and the previous tenants has led to some more optimistic readers to assume he'll figure out what's going on in time and escape to get help. Realistically, cyanide poison can be treated, but only if a person receives immediate help. Naturally, adaptations of the story are far more cynical...
• Rewatch Bonus: If you don't know about the Bitter Almonds trope before reading the story and later learn about it, the landlady's offering of tea will become much, much more horrifying.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The original story is ambiguous enough that the reader can interpret the ending however they like. The "Tales of the Unexpected" adaptation shows the landlady beginning the process of embalming Billy, while he is still alive, and cuts to her visiting the corpses of her other victims in the next room.
  • Hitchcock's version, for what it's worth, also has Billy succumb to the poison, but is slightly less macabre with Hitchcock assuring the audience that the landlady eventually gets her comeuppance.