The Girl Next Door - Sometimes ‘horror’ doesn’t need the supernatural

‘The Girl Next Door’ is a pretty nasty little film.  And it’s not your ‘traditional’ horror film.  These days ‘horror’ means either a guy in a mask stalking and murdering overly-sexed teens, or a ghost making a family’s life hell in their home.  However, here everything remains horribly real.

And, to make matters worse, it’s even based on real events.  Normally, when a film is allegedly based on real events, it means that something might have inspired the film, but has been massively changed to make it more ‘Hollywood.’ However, here it looks like this pretty much happened the way it’s portrayed here.

Two young girls’ parents die and they’re forced to live with their aunt and her sons.  Sadly for the girls, blood is definitely not thicker than water.  The aunt is a complete psychopath and is seemingly happy to raise her children to be equally as horrible.  Therefore, what follows is a story of abuse and torture.  The two girls’ one hope comes in another young boy who lives next door.  He sees what’s happening and – naturally – doesn’t approve, but can and will he do something to save them?

Because all but one – the aunt – of the actors and actresses in this film are basically kids, the production may suffer from a lack of professionalism.  Sometimes kids in films just don’t go and become annoying.  Well, granted many of this woman’s brood are very annoying (and downright psychotic) they play their nasty little parts very well.  Of course if you don’t have kids, this film may just put you off having them forever.

The film starts and ends with an adult, basically looking back on the story he witnessed.  I felt this aspect was kind of unnecessary and could have been left on the cutting room floor.

Normally, with a film that I enjoyed, I’d definitely watch it again, if not sooner rather than later.  However, despite seeing this film as actually quite good, I don’t think it’s the type I could sit through for a second time.  It is horrible.  No mistake.  So, despite it being well-acted, horrific and generally good for what it is, I don’t think I could go through it again.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that