Starring: Blythe Auffarth, Daniel Manche, Blanche Baker.
Directed by: Gregory Wilson
Review Written By: The Grief Tourist
Gregory Wilson’s adaptation of Jack Ketchum’s novel The Girl Next Door is a grim and nasty story based on the real life torture and murder of Sylvia Likens. The film is harsh, realistic and upsetting and is not for casual audiences. Shown at Frightfest 2007 in the summer, it cast a dark shadow over the day of everyone that saw it.
The film follows the story of Meg Loughlin and her sister Susan. They are sent by their parents to live with Ruth Chandler and her children. Ruth is seen as the cool mother in town who lets her children - and indeed the neighbourhood kids - drink and smoke in her house. The arrival of Meg and Susan sparks a nasty catalyst in Ruth’s life and we see her degenerate from casual mum into monster. She taunts and humiliates Meg and encourages the other children to treat her similarly. The only person who sees the wrong in the situation is the young next door neighbor: David, who is Meg’s only hope of friendship and survival. However as we draw closer to the end of the film we know that a happy ending is indeed unlikely.
Blanche Baker (Ruth Chandler) is the stand out performance in the film. She is forced to play one of the vilest roles seen in cinema in a long time and she does it without ever giving in to playing the evil villain stereotype. Her Ruth is cold, mean and sadistic yet she manages to make the part believable enough to make you really question just how much you might know about the ‘lady next door’. Blythe Auffarth also deserves much credit as Meg as she performs the role of a strong young girl who is brutally destroyed by Ruth and her children, she has to suffer some horrendous torment and just taking the role at all deserves some praise. Daniel Manche is also fine as young David and shines out amongst the other child actors who aren’t perhaps as good as you would like them to be. This does hinder the film slightly as you cannot believe that some of these kids would ever do the horrible things they do. Then again perhaps that is a comfort more than anything.
Director Gregory Wilson gives the film a very dark feel which is exactly what this piece needs. He also makes the right decision to show us just enough of the torture and pain, yet allowing our minds to really create the whole picture, believe me it is not pretty! Everything in this film seems to draw all light away from it and even in scenes when there are moments of tenderness, either between Meg and Susan or Meg and David we can never quite escape the fact that we know these moments will be short-lived.
Overall the film worked on most levels and despite some poor performances from a few cast members there is really very little wrong with it. However, the film is incredibly harsh and will probably only be well received by those who like their cinema extreme. The film takes many liberties with the true story, the biggest of these being that the character of David never did exist in reality yet for the little glimmer of hope he brings to the story, we should consider him a blessing. A film based on the real events called An American Crime will be coming out in the future and it, like this film, is likely to create much controversy when it is released. The Girl Next Door is an ugly look at the human condition but is excellent viewing none the less.
MOVIE MAESTRO RATING:
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