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.

 

Let it Begin

Well, thus began the daunting task of writing horror reviews. I’ve watched many a scare flick in my day, and have become immersed in the technical geekery of the genre. Neither my husband nor most of my friends and family are willing to subject themselves to the white knuckling of theatre seats and the unavoidable heart palpitation that comes with a good horror film. So, here I am to spread the good word out to the internet.

I love horror films. Good ones, bad ones, inbetween ones, the cheesy big haired high waisted jeans ones and even the is-this-really-a-horror-movie-oh-my-shit-yes-it-is! ones. I don’t always watch the newest, the best and brightest. When I do, I can’t say I always appreciate the best and brightest, but I’ve got hope for the future.

So, I’ve gotta start somewhere. I’ll dust off a review from a Halloween marathon a few years back, one that I hadn’t heard much about, and still haven’t.

The Dead (2010)

Directed by brothers Howard and Jonathon Ford, The Dead is a zombie film that is set in an un-dead infested Africa. We follow an American military engineer whom, while trying to escape the ravaged (unnamed) country, finds himself the only survivor of a plane crash just off the coast. He struggles to shore and fights off the infected as they plod slowly towards him (at the rate of the original Night of The Living Dead zombies, very very slowly, so slowly that our lead character has time to pry open a wooden box that washes ashore to retrieve a gun and, later manages to find the time to calmly change his tire before the zombies can gain enough momentum to lethargically reach out and slap at him).

He meets up with an African soldier who is traveling across the country in search of his son, who he believes to have been taken to an army base.  The two team up and work together in their efforts to escape the relentless zombies. A unique take on the traditional zombie film in that it is set in the wild country of Africa; beautiful scenery and vibrant color abounds in The Dead. That being said, the plot of the film moves as slowly as its Zombies. I found myself getting bored and often distracted with very few legitimate scares. This does not mean a low key movie can’t be entertaining, but this one can hardly boast  much dialogue, nor political or social commentary. The motivations of our characters is a longing to return to family, but, hey, this is a horror movie, do I really want to have to pick out themes to justify it being a worthwhile watch? I can sit through a lot of cheesy splatter horrors, crazy films, oddball films, downright bad films, but this one was just a little too dull. Some decent acting from Prince David Oseia in the role of Daniel, but lead actor Rob Freeman reads his lines like he is asleep.

The Dead had good intentions, but falls flat. Not much of a scare, not much of a story and altogether not that much fun.