The Real Bad Guys

The Girl Next Door (2007)

This movie is probably one of the most disturbing films I have seen in a long time, and I don’t mean in a fun, makes you jump, creepy crawly scare sort of way. The Girl Next Door is a story of hatred, depravity and the evil that can hide at the core of even your next door neighbours.

Horror films, though they make us shake and squirm, hiding a nervous giggle when they manage to evoke a scream, still offer some form of indulgence and escape. The Girl Next Door offers no such thing. This film is a blunt, harsh suckerpunch to the guts. The plot centers around a young boy who discovers that his next door neighbour, Ruth, along with her sons, is brutally torturing and abusing her nieces, who have come to live with her following an accident that took the lives of their parents. Set in a time when a man hitting a woman for running her mouth off isn’t unheard of, this film doesn’t hold back, slapping the audience in the face with utter inhumanity.

Beginning with mild taunting, and a sense of uneasiness, a sense that something is wrong here, The Girl Next Door begins to make your skin crawl almost immediately. Once the reality of the abuse becomes clear, this film is unrelenting, shaking the audience by the shoulders with scenes that you cannot turn away from. The acts of abuse we see committed against these children are made even more shocking and horrific by the fact that they are often perpetrated by children themselves. Ruth’s sons are warped by her insanity, her disgust for herself, and for women in general. As a result, they follow her orders, and even give them, from time to time, committing unimaginable acts upon the girls.

Ruth is one of the most chilling villains I have seen in a movie to date, played perfectly by Blanche Baker, she rarely raises her voice above a dull deadpan, as she orders her sons to cut, burn, and rape her niece. This brings to mind a scene from The Silence of the Lambs, in which Dr. Chilton recalls to Clarice that Hannibal Lecter once ate a man’s face, all while keeping his pulse below 85. This is not ‘torture porn’, like Saw or Hostel, in which gore rules and shock carries the story. This is a film in which a child is brutally exploited, and the camera focuses not on blood or nudity, but zooms in on the pain behind the girl’s eyes (the primary victim, Meg, is played by Blythe Auffarth).

This movie is marketed as a horror film, though it fits none of the criteria usually associated with the genre. That being said, it is truly horrific, and that sense of dread, even of guilt, is made even more prominent now that I’ve done a little research and discovered that this film is based on a true story, and not in Blair With Project sort of way. These stories don’t have to be contrived, because they happen. Evil on this level exists, hiding in the light. I don’t think I’ll ever bring myself to watch this movie again, but it has been effective in evoking an emotional response from me. It sickened me, made me want to cry, made me gasp, made me flinch, made me want to cover my eyes. You will not feel good after watching this film, and it is likely to stay writhing under your skin for a long time.