"It's what you do last that really counts."
These are the words that close out The Girl Next Door, based on a work by Jack Ketchum and inspired by true events (mostly the murder of Sylvia Likens in 1965). I'll get to why I have a problem with that sentence at the end of the review.
The film's plot follows David, a young kid in 1958 who develops a bit of a crush on a girl named Meg. Meg has just moved in next door with her sister Susan, after the girls lost both of their parents in an accident. After he and his friends start spending some more time with Meg, he starts seeing signs that all might not be quite right at the house, and Meg's Aunt Ruth, along with her three boys, could be a bit of a sadist.
I'll just come right out and say it: I loathed this film. I was having a legitimately hard time trying to write something other than "I FUCKING HATE THIS MOVIE" for five paragraphs. This is a cruel, sadistic, mean, and just flat out idiotic film for 99% of it's running time. And I suppose they're trying to make you feel disturbed that this was based off of true events, but if you do some research, it actually changes quite a bit from the previously mentioned case (and apparently isn't even completely faithful to Ketchum's novel). I found myself more annoyed and pissed off than actually disturbed or scared.
Before I continue tearing this flaming pile of excrement apart, I will gave praise to two things. While I thought most of the cast was very green, the performances from Blythe Auffarth and Blanche Baker are pretty okay. Admittedly, Blythe's character is supposed to be around 14-15, so it's a bit weird to see her portrayed by a 21-22 year old, but regardless, it's a good performance. Blanche is pretty good as the demented aunt, despite a couple of hiccups here and there.
But that's where the good parts stop. I want you to take a look at the cover above. One of the things that intrigued me was that quote by Stephen King. Honestly, at first, I wouldn't have been surprised if this was set in Derry, Maine. That is, until the film kept chugging along. The difference between child protagonists in King's works and this is that King's "heroes," despite not being perfect, are far more realistic and less idiotic. Heck, the kids in It were fairly intelligent, and actually less stupid as children than they were as adults. I HATED the character of David, mostly due to refusing to believe that children in the 50s were this big of cowards and/or morons and were too stupid to act until the very end when they sensed something was wrong. Hell, this girl gets torture, raped, burned, and gets an honest-to-god CLITORECTOMY, and he can't even seem to think simple things like "Durrrr maybe this wrong, maybe I should call the cops." It takes our protagonist 80 minutes to finally realize that he's seen enough. That is just absurd.
Then again, he isn't alone in being a lousy kid. Every other child in the film, whether it's his friends, or Ruth's sons, are just as awful. The neighborhood kids go from being dicks, to sickening individuals with no real transition. Just one of those "Hey, we're gonna be evil now too for no particular reason" type of scenarios. I also didn't get any real sense of friendship or camaraderie between the kids, it felt forced or just nonexistent. Stand By Me this ain't.
I initially thought this film's final act could sort of make up for the 9/10ths of bullshit I had to sit through, but then, Dave spouted that line I quoted at the top. And I knew that I officially hated this entire film. I wish I could pull an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and literally have this movie wiped from my memory. I wouldn't recommend this even to people who enjoy sadism without substance, or even the so-called "torture porn" category that's been so often tagged in recent horror films. I would say stay away.
But then again, this is just my opinion. What do I know? I own DVDs of Shark Attack 3: Megalodon and Santa's Slay.
Tomorrow, I will visit an absolutely terrifying tale of "the dark," and hope that Satan doesn't possess my funny bone.
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