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Belushi and Aykroyd team up for a dark comedy unlike any I've seen.

Earl (Belushi) is quietly living his life in the suburbs with his wife and daughter, but it takes a decided turn for the worse when a lunatic (Aykroyd) and his wife move in next door.

Earl's life is turned into a nonsensical nightmare by the new couple; Vic tells nonstop lies about everything including whether his 'home-made' spaghetti sauce came from a jar and if the spaghetti is from a non-existent Italian restaurant while his wife Ramona (Cathy Moriarty) alternately seduces and blackmails Earl. Particularly funny is the segment in which Earl tries to sneak out in the middle of the night for a rendezvous with Ramona, only to be caught by Vic, who is awake, on his rooftop, and wearing scuba gear.

I didn't really care for this movie the first time I saw it, because almost nothing made any sense. Now, it's one of the few movies I've purchased. I suppose it's an acquired taste, but don't give up too quickly on it. After all, Belushi isn't making any new ones, is he?

ps- Great musical score! No instruments lend themselves to bizarre going-ons quite as readily as a trombone and kazoo.

Neighbors

The irony of neighbours is that you often kill them with the same tool you borrowed from them.

However, the aggravated neighbour in this dark comedy is liable to use his bare-hands.

Despondent suburbanite Earl (John Belushi) is jolted from his mundane existence when an unconventional couple (Dan Aykroyd, Cathy Moriarty) moves in next-door.

Unnerved by his forwardness and her flirtatiousness, Earl is confused as to why they moved into his quiet community.

He soon begins to draw his own conclusions, which ultimately leads to paranoia and self-destruction.

A satire on suburban bliss, Neighbors finds both its SNL alumni playing against their type in order to create a truly eccentric comedy.

Based on the delusional bestseller by Thomas Berger, this undervalued psychological comedy from the '80s is an excellent commentary on the confines of safety and sanity.

Furthermore, you should only interact with your neighbours if they have a pool.

Yellow Light

vidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

My memories of real youth, like from five to ten years old are completely blurred for the most part but for some reason I remember watching John Belushi movies. I remember going to see `Neighbors' and `Continental Divide' in the theater! I haven't really examined this but basically since I was born I have adored John Belushi. I remember renting `Neighbors' when the VCR was a new item and I'd watch it over and over again. I guess I was a pretty strange ten-year old. Memories of watching his movies, his death and whatever else are still with me in strange little flashes.

I find `Neighbors' to be his best work. This is a controversial opinion! I've recently reread Woodward's `Wired' and it seems John detested everything about this movie. He had sincere hatred for the director, Alvidsen- he continually asked to replace him. Yet, John's biggest concern for `Neighbors', again citing from Woodward's book, was the soundtrack. He wanted it to be punk rock and Holy Christ did it ever wind up the antithesis. Of course I would love to have seen `Neighbors' done the way John would have intended it but I still am very fond of this movie as is. I think Alvidsen did a great job of bottling all of John's manic energy and I think he summoned his best performance. It's such a strange contradiction that, again from reading `Wired', John wanted desperately to lose the `Bluto' stigma and prove he could be a versatile actor. This role reversal gave him that chance and yet he was against this film from the beginning.

I think `Neighbors' is fantastic. It's like `Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf' on acid or something. This film should be examined by future filmmakers as an example of how what seems like all the wrong ingredients can make a positive and an unforgettable piece of cinema in the end.

This turd won't send many running to Thomas Berger's rich novel, which is a shame. The book is everything the film failed to be: a scathing satire on moronic American suburban life.

The problem is a director far out of his depth. Though armed with a script largely faithful to its subversive source material, director John Avildsen (Rocky, Karate Kid) is a maker of feel-good entertainment who hasn't a clue how to handle satire or absurdity. It's like asking John Ashcroft to rap.

While Belushi is serviceable and Akroyd is fun, we can only imagine how this last partnership might have turned out in competent hands. They're frequently misdirected by Avildsen who thinks he's doing Reagan-era Abbott and Costello. Painful; read the novel.

It's completely understandable why Neighbors wasn't exactly a success upon its release and why critics panned it every time they got the chance. Following super hit Blues Brothers with a weird, low-key black comedy was always going to be a challenge. The premise is comparable to The 'Burbs: mysterious neighbours in an isolated suburbia cause great stress and confusion for its uptight inhabitants. The whole thing plays very much like a WB cartoon, the irritating mickey-mousing score being an obvious clue. John Belushi is fun in an against-type performance whilst Dan Aykroyd is as good as ever. The humour is dark and wacky making the whole thing pretty unexpected and, times, random. Calling this film "illogical" is a bit like calling an episode of Road-Runner "improbable". The point of Neighbors is exactly that sometimes the random and the unexpected can be frustrating and overwhelming but that, in the end, it makes like much more interesting. Overall, Neighbors is great fun and its Tex Avery-style goofiness is either something you'll love or hate. Personally, I think this is a little gem deserving of some more attention and recognition.

This is a terrible movie. The worst part is it was advertised on TV as a comedy. A short 10 second snippet of Dan Akroyd, John Belushi and Kathy Moriarty sitting around talking, giving impression that you need to go see the movie to hear the hilarious punch line that they didn't show in the advertisement. So people go to the movie only to find out there was no hilarious punch line at the end of that scene, or any other scene. No hilarious lines, not a belly laugh, not a laugh, not a grin, not a smile not even a hint of a smile, just two hours of boredom, wondering if you should leave now or wait on the promised laugh, which never comes. In one scene John Belushi gives Dan Akroyd $50 to go buy a carry-out supper. Dan goes next door and makes spaghetti. As we walked out of the movie the man behind said: "I feel like I just paid Dan Akroyd $50 for a plate of bad spaghetti."

This movie is listed as a comedy, and therefore it is supposed to make us laugh. To be sure, we do occasionally laugh ;yet there is a disturbing flavor of sadness and bitterness both in the plot and in the characters.To begin with, those two houses, at the end of a suburban road, close to a swamp and a high voltage power transmission tower are exceedingly depressing. One learns from the plot that there is not even a decent restaurant at any short driving distance. And , as far as other people around, besides the five major characters, simply forget about them !!! I strongly suspect that acting in this movie may have played a not insignificant role in John Belushi " almost" suicide, shortly after.

There's nothing in that movie remotely funny. This is the Belushi movie I had never seen and now... I wish I hadn't seen it. The pacing is terrible and there's no sense of passing time: everything seems to happen in two hours but the story apparently takes place in more than a day. The plot is full of holes, illogical and characters have unexplained mood swings: they go from hating each other to missing one another in a flash. Continuity didn't seem to be a concern when they made that movie. I felt like parts were missing.

All in all, it's badly written, incoherent, under-directed, the music is terrible (Warner Bros cartoon, anyone ?) and... we just don't care. At least I don't. Too bad Belushi didn't get the chance to make another movie to make of forget this piece of crap.

I became acquainted with Neighbors through Bob Woodward's controversial 'Wired: The Short Life And Fast Times of John Belushi' (in turn, I read a review of Wired in the long defunct lads mad Loaded!). Anyway, regardless of the disputed accounts and allegations of inaccuracies, I finally got to see Neighbors in the early days of the newly launched UK TV station Channel 5 (itself no stranger to scandal thoroughout the Nineties - due to a schedule of football, films and fornication).

Almost from its inception Neighbors was affected by every sort of problem that could conceivably affect a movie; I have no intention of rehashing these, but I will say that Neighbors is a strangely compelling comedy; John Belushi is quite effective as frustrated, ineffectual, conservative surburbanite Earl Kesse, whose steady life rapidly unravels under the relentless psychological and emtotional assault (temptation?) from his provocative new neighbours Vic and Ramona, both played with an obvious relish by Dan Ackroyd and Cathy Moriarity (the decision by Belushi and Ackroyd to switch roles was the project's shrewdest move) ; there are good turns from Kathryn Walker and Lauren - Marie Taylor as Belushi's repective wife and daughter.

Contemporary audiences were left frustrated with Neighbors - instead of Animal House or 1941, they got a black comedy of suburban life that doesn't quite work despite the best efforts of its cast. Whilst I though John Alvidsen did not a bad job, given the circumstances, perhaps a sharper script,less studio interference and a more suitable director might have gotten something closer to Gelbert's dark, caustic satire on middle American life. The endless fights and backstabbing took a toll on the finished product.

A final point, as a comparison with Sid Vicious, was by Alex Cox in his book 'X Films: True Confessions of A Radical Filmmaker' that struck a cord with this reviewer; no one disputes that John Belushi's on set behaviour, fuelled by a serious cocaine addiction, which would tragically kill him months later, was outrageous; yet his lobbying for a soundtrack by punk band Fear perhaps showed a better instinct for the film than the studio professionals around him - not that we will ever know.

What would you do if your new neighbors were wildly sexy, uninhibited, and made a sport of playing with your emotions and desires, in seductively teasing and dangerously exciting ways? If you think you're happily married (Wife & Kid) and nothing exciting ever happens to you because your too straight edge and repressed (like Belushi's character) then you can only react. And react John does. This comedy works on so many different levels. I have seen every thing Belushi and Aykroyd have ever done on screen, big and small, together and separate, and this is their best work. This movie is unpredictable, and it's meant to be that way. It is a comic reminder that one night can turn your world upside down, inside out and backward. The laughs are both in your face and subtle, one of my favorites comes right at the end, when Vic (Aykroyd) deadpans "It's not enough". You'll just have to see it to know what I mean. If you liked the dialog and humour in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Snatch" and other Dark Comedies, and you like Belushi & Aykroyd, You'll love this.

A quiet man (John Belushi)'s peaceful suburban lifestyle is threatened by the new, obnoxious couple that moves in next door.

I feel like this was a precursor to "The Burbs". Not as funny, definitely not as weird, but some of the same concepts about the horrors of the suburbs. John Belushi excels here because he is given an opportunity to be the normal guy rather than the "wild and crazy one". Aykroyd is okay, though this is far from his best.

And Cathy Moriarty? I still have to wonder how she never got any bigger. She seemed to start off so strong, fade away, briefly come back for "Casper" and then... where did she go? Cathy, we need more movies with you, please.

As is evident from the many split decisions to be found on this site, "Neighbors" is not everyone's cup of tea. However, for those who have a taste for dark comedy, it is quite a good film. As has been stated numerous times, this film was a critical and box-office failure, and there were many tensions between Belushi and the director on set. Despite this turmoil, or maybe because of it, "Neighbors" has an authentically skewed, uncomfortable tone. This works in it's favor, however, considering the subject matter. As does the casting of Aykroyd and Belushi in the roles of tormentor and victim, respectively. This choice is probably most responsible for some's dislike of the film. Unfortunately, Belushi, near the end of his life, was being pigeon-holed as a crass, boorish "wild man" of comedy, mostly due to his turns in "National Lampoon's Animal House" and "1941." However, he was a fine comedic actor capable of great subtlety and fine nuance, which is why he consciously chose the role he did (the film was originally conceived with John in the role of Vic). This film and many scenes from his first year on "Saturday Night Live" grandly illustrate his range. Likewise, Dan Aykroyd was quite an intense performer back then - in many "SNL" scenes (again, mostly from the first year), Aykroyd paraded out a variety of high-strung bizarre characters which practically vibrated with energy... indeed, though he did not end up playing it, the role of "D-Day" in "Animal House" was conceived with Dan in mind. Here, he really gets to cut loose and, as always, his and John's interplay are priceless. Not to be overlooked is the incredibly hot Cathy Moriarty who, not to take away from her own formidable comedic prowess, was quite the piece of ass (she was also stunning in "Raging Bull"). This is by no means a perfect film, and it does slow in spots, but it is by no means the disaster many make it out to be. See for yourself... love it or hate it, at least admire it for trying to be different. Funny stuff!

I suppose this looked good on paper but the story of an everyman being tormented by his neighbors is simply an excuse for abusing the audience.

I should talk, I've willingly sat down and watched this film a couple of times over the years, trying to figure out what several friends found so screamingly funny in this movie. After each screening, or partial one I'm left feeling that blows to the head by blunt instruments would have been more fun and would have taken away less time of my existence.

Its not completely with out redeeming values, there are some laughs, well not laughs but chuckles, or maybe smiles. There's something that keeps this from the bottom of the bottom, but lord knows what it is.

I hate this movie

My wife and I like to play a little game when we go on long drives. It's called "let's name horrible movies made by Saturday Night Live cast members". It seems to last for hours as we name stinker after stinker (such as Dr. Detroit or A Night at the Roxbury) and ultimately it boils down to two movies as the worst ones we can think of: Neighbors and Nothing But Trouble. It's funny, but if we play the same game but make it to name the BEST of their movies we have a much harder time unless we remember to include Bill Murray's movies (and he's done some wonderful ones).

So, why is Neighbors one of the two worst SNL movies? Well, first I must admit there MAY be worse ones but we have actually tried to avoid most SNL vet movies, so our base is not exhaustive. Second, it is one of the few movies that made me physically sick (the other being Jerry Lewis' CRACKING UP). It simply had NOT one funny line of dialog, no funny scenes and featured two men who I know CAN be funny--I do still recall seeing John Belushi in Animal House and Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places (not GREAT but a good flick).

So what is the plot? From what I can remember, Belushi plays his role VERY STRAIGHT as a dull suburbanite and Aykroyd as an obnoxious neighbor. THAT'S ALL THE PLOT!!!!! Nothing more. THAT'S IT!! Next time, at least try to write a script and make SOME efforts for humor! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

John Belushi stars in his last film as a husband who lives a quiet life with his wife in the suburbs until Dan Aykroyd and Cathy Moriarity show up and unleash their obnoxious and out of control lives upon the neighborhood and especially on Belushi and his wife..Has some good moments with Belushi trying to remain sane.. on a scale of one to ten..7

It's official -- this is the worst movie I have ever seen. It's a comedy with almost no laughs. Very little happens, and even worse, it happens incredibly slowly. If you like Aykroyd and Belushi (and believe me I do), don't let this stinker blacken the rest of their achievements -- just avoid it. It's like watching your favourite sports star screw up the whole game. It's just embarrassing. Life is short -- don't waste your time on this drivel.

I thought this film had some good funny moments to it, it was kind of a nice turn to see John Belushi in the less crazy role than he was usually cast in. Instead, the role of the crazy guy is played by Dan Aykroyd who plays crazy rather well in this one. A bit to well, when I once saw part of this film as a child I thought that this movie was a horror film rather than a dark comedy. And dark it is, a bit to dark in places and a bit to uneven as this film goes here and there with no structured plot to speak of. The film feels very pointless, in fact as the end of the film sees a resolution that kind of makes little sense. The story is basic as a guy with a rather bland life has this bland existence interrupted by a set of crazed neighbors (hence the title). Not that they are that crazed, just a bit obnoxious and wild, not the type to go on a killing spree anyway. Dan's character is a bit like a much more crazy version of the brother-in-law he played in "The Great Outdoors", but less for the way he acted and more because they were both unwanted guests at the time. This film could have been a lot better had they worked on the script a bit more as I have said it at times feels like an assortment of random scenes. Thankfully, a good many of the scenes are a bit funny.

So-called comedy about a feelgood businessman who tries to keep his sanity when he discovers his new neighbors are one-dimensional. John Belushi was a talented comic actor, and he was hilarious on SNL and in the film ANIMAL HOUSE. Sadly, he was never able to repeat those successes, and he died too soon. This film, in particular, proves it. There is no real chemistry between Belushi and Dan Aykroyd here and the jokes are never there. Belushi's death was a tragedy, but this film was an even bigger one.

1 out of 5

Sure it is a hated film. Why? Because the underlying message is a direct assault on the most sacred of American institutions - the "American dream".

Here's a guy who seems to have it all, at least according to American mythology. A big house. A good job. An attractive wife. A daughter in college. What could possibly be wrong just beneath the surface of this Norman Rockwell portrait of American perfection? Along come the new neighbors to reveal what's wrong. The guy's wife doesn't love him, or even respect him. He's basically miserable working far too much. His daughter is a slutty punk. He's ready to have an affair as soon as the opportunity arises, and to cap it off, he's also a cowardly a-hole who is the butt of every joke by everyone around him. His staunch right wing lifestyle explodes in his face.

In the end, he comes around and realizes all of this. Now here's where the film really kicks the brainwashed American in the face - he realizes that his entire life has been a lie, and actually decides to abandon it. For the first time in the entire film, he's joyful. He's actually giddy at how happy it makes him to destroy everything he had worked his entire life for and flee to parts unknown with a couple of lunatics, because anything would be better than another day in suburban America pretending that's a life worth living.

For those who wrote saying that the film's events did not connect together, this is simply absurd. The film is a roller-coaster of surprises and twists that make it highly entertaining, especially the first time. When I first saw this in theatrical release, I was stunned because finally there was a film that didn't follow the very, very tired three-act formula. Here was something that actually kept you in suspense because you didn't know what would happen next. That's the mark of a great film in my opinion. I want to be surprised. I don't want to know everything that's going to happen 5 minutes into the film, the way you can with most of the crap that's being cranked out these days. This is a masterpiece and deserved far more attention than it received, but of course it pushed a lot of buttons among the general public.

I didn't walk out on this movie, for only one reason. I saw it at a drive-in, so I made my early exit by car.

Extremely dull, dire, pointless and wretched. It's a comedy, but anyone who's had loudmouth, inconsiderate, and psychotic neighbors knows there's nothing funny about them. The last thing you want to see is jerks like that celebrated on the screen at the cost of your hard earned money.

With the talents of Belushi and Akroyd, this atrocity of cinema is unforgivable. The script is a cacophony of disjointed stories about people finding an assortment of mean spirited things to do to a guy who hasn't done anything to deserve it. This kind of material might (repeat, "might") have been funny as random skits on Akroyd and Belushi's alma mater, Saturday Night Live. In a full length film, it just becomes a painful burden to endure.

Utterly awful. Poorly scripted, poorly directed, poorly acted. Avoid this worthless garbage.

not a mainstream comedy by any means This movie fails on nearly every front but has 2 things going for it, the cast, its an almost forgotten piece of Ackroyd and Belushi in their prime, secondly its off kilter pace and atmosphere, these alone are enough to give it a place in my collection.

If your not into either of the above then give this a wide berth as its sure to disappoint. apparently the film had a difficult gestation and this seems plausible as its very inconsistent and aimless at times, shifting gear unexpectedly. an eclectic and patchy dark comedy it should suit die hard fans who want to see more of A&B