The Girl Next Door

After a few years when most cinefiles have had the opportunity to view this perverse (Eli Roth, James Wan, Leigh Wannell should bow to this landmark exploitative realist torture porn exercise)freak show, Blanche Baker's performance as the ringleader of some of the most demented and cruel forms of abuse ever depicted on celluloid. Perfectly cast, this once attractive woman has given into her bitterness and misogynistic hatred. (Did I miss any allusions of her hubby(ies) leaving her for other women?) Any vespice of decency has evaporated. Her skin grows more ragged, pale and lined with each cigarette that mephistocoleanly cascades around her heavily made up face. What makes her so mezmerizing is her command of both language and seductive techniques. The children, some of which are devious to be begin with, fall to Ruth's most primitive primeval desires. Although the film respects its victims to never display any of the sexual abuse on-screen, Ruth's permanent content smile serves the salacious quotient. Oh my, and her voice is god-awful pleasant, delicious - akin to a ripe deep red strawberry sliding down your throat. Although heavy-handed (and apparently not historcially accurate) the movie's visual style impressively mocks the pure, clean-living images usually associated with white-bread 1950's Americana. Outside the cemetery-grey basement, the colors are bright, sunny and filled with the promise of budding adolescence. As to keep the audience horrifyingly subjected to Ruth's hold over the children, certain logical problems of prevention - aka either the children or the system preventing Ruth from caring for so many children - arose. Also, the forment of jealousy inside Ruth over Meg's burgeoning good looks, and other situational contexts are dismissed for intimacy concerns. Ummm...not really sure what the bookended present-day scenes served outside to add some fatuous symbolism. The end credits score should have haunted me more.

Meg Loughlin's parents are dead, causing her and her sister to live with their aunt Ruth. Ruth is not like the other parents: she allows the neighborhood children to smoke and drink, and has an intense dislike for Meg -- for no real reason. After telling the police about mistreatment, Meg's punishment becomes more and more severe.

First, let me say that Blythe Auffarth (who plays Meg Loughlin) is an amazing actress. Some of the scenes in this film are truly awful -- not acted awful, mind you, but are just visually repellent. Most actresses would say no to the torture, rape and beatings contained in this film. And you cannot blame them. But Auffarth accepts the role and does an amazing job of being the normal "girl next door".

While watching this film, I told myself I had finally found the spiritual successor to "Last House on the Left" and my opinion remains the same. Like "Last House", this film is scary because of its realism. The events could actually happen to the victim, it's not just a psycho with an ax (which, while possible, is more fantasy than anything). Perhaps this film even trumps "Last House" in a way because the events really did happen, and actually happened worse than depicted here. The real girl, for example, also had to consume human waste, which is not shown here.

Making the film even more powerful is that we are shown the events from the point of view of the neighbor boy, who has a crush on Meg (despite being a few years younger). We watch them meet, become friends and then as events spin more and more out of control we see how completely helpless the boy is. While the boy is only mildly harmed in the film, it's an emotional roller coaster to be put in his shoes knowing everything that is happening and having nothing available to remedy it. The suffering he feels vicariously, we also feel vicariously. It's a pain train.

I cannot recommend this film for the squeamish. I was very uneasy watching it, making this film a member of a very exclusive list (with such others as "Kids"). Even those who enjoy seeing a film of slaughter (and sometimes I do) will be shocked in some way by this one. It's not your Jason or Freddy film, it's your sister or girlfriend really being kidnapped and there's nothing you can do about it. And yes, this really did happen and it can happen again.

I was very unsure on how to rate this film. I watched it all and to be fair the film held my interest throughout. I would say it is probably a good film but something I cannot say I enjoyed watching, which was probably the aim of the director. Taboo subjects in society change rapidly over the years and this film deals with argumentibly the most taboo, certainly a topic most people find hard to talk about. Abuse and torture happen. Fact. What this film managed to do for me is to take both subjects and ram them down my throat at a more than uncomfortable rate. And that is the story line. No humour. No romance as such and no happiness. For me this was not entertainment. I guess some people will enjoy this film, in the same way that people like to rubber neck at accidents when they drive past. The publicity will make this film popular and it will no doubt develop a form of notoriety that clockwork orange and the exorcist enjoyed twenty years ago. But for me. I will not be watching it again as I would not be able to get anything positive out of it.

This is a very harrowing movie based on a true story from 1958 of an adopted teenage girl who is kept tied-up in a basement and horribly physically and sexually abused by her male cousins and other neighborhood kids, all under the orchestration of her very insane woman-hating aunt.

This movie is definitely hard to watch (it prompted at least one walk-out at the midnight film festival showing I attended), but it's nowhere as graphic as it COULD be given the subject matter, and it doesn't revel in the abuse and degradation of the girl like many of these kind of movies tend to (think "I Spit on Your Grave" and some of the recent so-called "torture porn."). It also has a strong moral center in the form of the pubescent boy next door who befriends the girl and becomes increasing disturbed by what is happening to her, but is unable to tell the authorities or even his clueless parents out of loyalty to his friends. This kind of helpless but moral hero is actually a lot more realistic than the usual avenging Rambo type in typical Hollywood movies (which ought to be called "revenge porn", and are even more dangerous than legitimate "torture porn" because they create the kind of dangerous fantasies that lead entire countries to blunder into places like Vietnam or Iraq). In that respect, it kind of reminded me of one of my favorite all-time movies, "River's Edge", which is also very disturbing, but ultimately very morally uplifting in a human (rather than revenge fantasy) way.

The acting by all involved is excellent and the directing more than adequate. Some may fault the movie for not having an obvious "message", but SFW. Don't see this if you're easily offended, but I would recommend it to anyone willing to give it a chance.

I consider myself a Horror freak. I'm pretty experienced with the genre, and I don't scare or shock easily. I've "survived" Martyrs, The Inside and Murder Set Pieces. This film squeezed my soul to the point of trauma.

The entire film is one long psychological torture, leaving the audience desperate, enraged, frustrated and helpless. It's been a while since I felt the urge to scream, pick up the computer screen and bash it to pieces. That was what I wanted to do to the characters of this film (except the one protagonist of course).

If you've ever thought a person could be cruel, abusive, and plain down right evil - The Girl Next Door will teach you that you haven't seen anything yet. There's barely any blood, and still - I have never, ever been more shocked and disturbed over a film. I'm a grown man, and I had to continuously remind myself that it was just a film and not real. Watching this makes you wanna curl inside yourself and cry like a child, or scream and go on a rampage.

This film is a proof that immense implication of violence always leaves a harder mark than graphic violence and gore. The script, the acting, the screenplay... all put together create a sick and traumatizing experience. The fact that this is based on a true story and real events - makes it even more shocking. Seriously, I need a hug right now.

I will never recommend this film to anyone, except people who have emotional problems, feel numb and unable to experience emotions. This film would make a dead body cry. One might be able to appreciate it as a film, but not enjoy it. I really hope there's a hell dark enough with sadistic enough eternal torture for those who committed the acts portrayed here.

First time I've rated a film 10.