Disturbed? More Like Perturbed--The Girl Next Door Lacks Teeth

I've never been shy about admitting to enjoying films and books with very dark themes. I love reading nasty, disgusting, and amoral horror. I also can't help but enjoy similar things in movies. A few weeks back I read The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. It was easily one of the most twisted and darkest things I've ever read. Maybe not *the* most terrible, but right up there with American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis), The Books of Blood collections (Clive Barker), short story Red (Richard Christian Matheson), The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood), and Song of Kali (Dan Simmons). After exploring reviews of the movie adaptation, I finally broke down and checked it out. I hoped for something as haunting and brutal as the book but instead got an unemotional, watered down adaptation.

The Girl Next Door (2007) is the story of David Moran (Daniel Manche). He lives in New Jersey on an idyllic street with lots of other adolescents and teenagers. He is twelve and it is summertime. All is perfect--aside from a strange "game" the filmmakers only vaguely address (it was much stranger and more brutal in the novel). One day he meets a beautiful and slightly older girl named Meg Loughlin (Blythe Auffarth). He is instantly infatuated with her. His puppy love only increases when he realizes she and her younger sister are now his neighbors. Meg and Susan's parents were killed in a terrible car accident and the sisters were sent to live with their distant relatives (a single mom and her three sons) who are David's friends. There is a short time where all seems well. Davy and Meg get along wonderfully, but then things start to get bad at her new home.

At the center of the problem is Ruth Chandler (Blanche Baker). She is both mentally ill and an alcoholic. She also treats the neighborhood children as peers rather than kids and gives them cigarettes and beer. If that's not bad enough Ruth also hates the fact that Meg and Susan (Madeline Taylor) have been forced on her. The resentment turns into abuse quickly. Threats, humiliation, and starvation give way to torture, whippings, and rape (at the hands of the Chandler boys). David is completely aware of what is going on with Meg. He witnesses most of the horrible abuse, though he doesn't partake in any of it. He is a bystander, but considering the escalation of Ruth's own "game" there is nothing innocent about him watching it occur.

Without giving away what happens, I will say that the abuse goes far beyond any normal (though still unacceptable) level. David is sympathetic to Meg and shows a lot of heart but peer pressure is very strong. Because his friends and all his peers know what is happening it has become normal and widely accepted. Things don't end well for the sisters, the Chandlers, or even David but I'll leave that bit of nastiness up to readers and viewers to uncover.

With a little plot summarization out of the way, I will turn my attention to the many problems I have with The Girl Next Door. The biggest issue I have with the film is that it lacks the teeth of the book. It doesn't feel as twisted, bizarre, and spartan as the Ketchum work. It also makes David seem like a hero. I didn't get this feeling at all with the book. He was a participant who also was sympathetic to Meg. In the movie he was not a participant. I guess the movie wanted to have a warm fuzzy core even though the abuse was sensational. Because the character of David was changed so much I think it lacks the sterility and pain of the novel.

There are a lot of other problems, too, namely the acting. Auffarth as Meg needed to carry the movie. It is told from David's perspective, but it is she that we are supposed to identify with. Unfortunately her performance is hollow, bitter, and weird. She is an older actress (over 20 at the time of filming) who was supposed to be portraying a 14-year-old. Her performance wasn't in the least bit convincing until she actually became a blindfolded victim. Then, when she could barely speak, I actually felt her. Otherwise her lacking talents were almost funny. The Girl Next Door had no sense of humor so this was not acceptable. I'm also not particularly impressed by Baker's portrayal of Ruth Chandler. She didn't seem wounded or troubled enough, though the character definitely hints at those things. The only real talent I felt was from Manche who did a fine enough job as David.

My final complaint is that the guys who wrote the screenplay (Daniel Farrands and Philip Nutman) didn't take any liberties with the text. While some chapters and passages were completely left out, they didn't add anything to the work. I appreciate that they were trying to stay true to Ketchum's book but because the characters said the same words in the same order as the book I didn't feel it was creative. Not only that, but I also don't think that rote regurgitation of words from a novel works well on the big screen. This movie proves my theory. As for the director, he did a fine enough job. This was clearly a small budget film and Gregory Wilson made his movie look good even if The Girl Next Door is overall a very bad example of a book-to-screen adaptation.

I am very disappointed by The Girl Next Door. My research prior to the viewing unearthed scads of obviously sheltered "horror" fans who thought it was one of the most disturbing things they have ever seen. Because I couldn't identify with Meg (the acting was that bad) and because David's character wasn't properly transferred to screen I think it was ugly and hollow. I highly recommend reading Jack Ketchum's novel but I am not in the least bit impressed with this awful and unemotional adaptation. If you want truly disturbing films, steer clear.

Rating: 1/5 stars

Related Review:

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
http://www.epinions.com/content_426152660612