The Girl Next Door

by | Jan 16, 2015 | The Horror Review News | 0 comments

Considering The Girl Next Door is the sophomore directorial effort by Gregory Wilson, and the first feature-length script by one of its co-writers, Philip Nutman (the other pen, Daniel Farrands, having less than a handful of credits to his name, a majority of which were television products), dazzles the mind. A horror film in the truest sense of the word, the filmmaker’s courage and strength is only seconded by his ability to refuse his work to lapse into gratuitous frivolity as he insists his creation stand as a testament, not only of the time, but as a reflection of humanity’s lack of progress.

In the Summer of 1958, after their parents die in a car accident, sisters Meg (Blythe Auffarth) and Susan (Madeline Taylor) Loughlin become fosters of their aunt, Ruth Chandler (Blanche Baker), and her three sons, Willie (Graham Patrick Martin), Donny (Benjamin Ross Kaplan), and Ralphie (Austin Williams). Shortly after their transition, Ruth’s pathological, alcohol-induced treatment of the girls culminates in undreamt of nightmares. Can the boy next door, David Moran (Daniel Manche), intervene before it is too late?

Any period horror film set in the 1950s immediately evokes comparisons to Tommy Lee Wallace’s made-for-television production of Stephen King’s It or even Stand By Me. However, the subject matter of The Girl Next Door is more closely associated with Eli Roth’s Hostel while the film’s execution and atmosphere more readily resembles Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (the latter also being a cinematic adaptation of a true story encompassing real-life horrors).

The first thing which one notices about the framed narrative is how accurately it depicts the era and characters, from every male dripping with VO5 and sporting Chuck Taylors, to its cast–predominately teenagers and preteens where the females are taller than their male counterparts. However, Wilson’s historical veracity quickly takes a back seat to the plot when he introduces one of the most wicked characters in cinema, Ruth Chandler. Fascinatingly, our spite for the woman continues to grow, from the time we meet her and are startled by her–to say the least–questionable parenting methods, to her intense, intense Sadistic malevolence at the film’s climax. Yet, it is not that Ruth permits her offspring, nieces, and the neighborhood’s children to freely smoke and drink before supervising unmentionable acts at the hands of the same that gives The Girl Next Door its prowess (though, indeed, what we witness throughout is akin to a car wreck wherein we catch ourselves looking though we know we will regret what we will see). Wilson’s masterstroke is that he separates himself from the tired, trite subgenre of horror porn (I seriously doubt even the most disturbed mind will find any pleasure in watching the film) which came before as he allows the evil he is depicting to speak of nothing less than the human predicament.

The Girl Next Door can be viewed from two primary perspectives. One, as a character study and, two, as social commentary upon the day and, by association, contemporary society. One cannot watch Wilson’s production and not pause to consider why Ruth houses so much malice. Slowly, given brief utterances here and there, the options become manifold: She is jealous of her lost youth and the potential which all younger females house in obtaining a husband whom they might be proud (Mr. Ruth abandoned the family and, we deduce, openly cheated on her before doing so). As a result, she projects her misgivings (due to her own faults) upon others. As a consequence, she seeks to do nothing short of making nubile youngsters, both male and female alike, mentally and socially retarded, if not cripple, hence her orchestrating rape and torture by teenage males upon a young girl. Wilson also offers the possibility that the character might well be a closet lesbian whom, due to the social mores of the time, is a self-hater and, as such, seeks to punish what she is not permitted to have. With the latter consideration, the director is to be applauded for he creates the polarity of a detestable character who demands our pity for Ruth is obviously a very, very damaged person. The only conceivable greater terror that can be considered is the motive for David’s Hamletian hesitation: Is he frozen due to what is occurring, fearful that any attempts at help would only exacerbate matters for Meg, or is he subconsciously enjoying what is taking place? Is the latter why a late-40ish David (William Atherton), during the opening scene, feels obligated to switch places with a man who was hit by a car–as a vain effort at penance? Wilson doesn’t offer easy answers for he knows there aren’t any.

Moreover, The Girl Next Door can also be viewed as a commentary upon the period wherein the domestic cloistering of the female, a form of torture, is literally portrayed and, as a result, the film depicts the knee-jerk reaction of such in the subconscious, i.e. basement, of one woman (i.e. Everywoman) in particular. To put it another way, David Lynch and Sam Mendes, with Blue Velvet and American Beauty respectively, don’t even come close to doing what Wilson does in respect to tearing the fabricated veil of perfection off of the American Dream.

Yet the genius that is Wilson is perhaps best exhibited, not in the construction of his themes and ideas and the exquisite nature of their execution, but in his ever-so-subtle foreshadowing. Early in the film, long before nary a blow has been landed, David approaches a buddy who is tossing earthworms to an ant hill while preparing to set two colonies against one another. Of course, said character, one of Ruth’s own, will later be part and parcel to human tortures yet, a scene before, we watched as David sat on a creek bed and captured crawfish only to release them back into the wild. However, for all of Wilson’s veteran handling of the subject matter, for all of his film’s sociological and psychological insight, I cannot recommend The Girl Next Door for a reason that becomes a paradoxical accolade: I wouldn’t want to be responsible for putting another person through it.

I have braved Ruggero Deodato’ Cannibal Holocaust, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Lucio Fulci’s canon, David DeFalco’s Chaos, Sidney Furie’s The Entity, Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible, Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles, Hiroshi Harada’s Midori, Eli Roth’s double dose of pain and suffering, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, and most of the Guinea Pig features, yet The Girl Next Door is too much. It is not that we see the beating, cutting, burning, branding, or raping, but rather it is because we don’t see the largest portion of it, though–poignantly–Wilson does periodically rest the camera upon the proceedings so that we don’t visually escape in its absence, lest we forget the intensity of what Meg is experiencing. Instead, like the craftsman he is, the director permits us to hear most of the tortures as they occur, thus letting the viewer’s mind do its worst. Ironically, and perhaps this is again a consequence of Wilson’s skill as a filmmaker, the harshest component of the tale is not the physical abuse but the verbal violence which coolly seeps from the lips of Ruth. My blood continues to run cold at the thought of it.

Gregory Wilson’s The Girl Next Door is a masterpiece without exception, one which, though difficult to take, is more honest and open than 99.9% of anything ever set to celluloid. The only terror worse than what is witnessed within is that the feature needed to be made, thus–by deduction–that contemporary society is much, much more dreadful. And, given Wilson’s justification, thereby proving that such is all too horrifically true.

-Egregious Gurnow

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