Lest you wander into it expecting the relatively upbeat Elisha Cuthbert comedy, the title warns us of the origins of this particular GIRL NEXT DOOR. A “Based on a true story” title card also reminds us that Jack Ketchum’s devastating, scarring novel was inspired by the (even more harrowing) fate of Sylvia Likens in Indiana in 1965. Likens was subjected to a barrage of humiliation and torture in the basement of a suburban house, where she was forced to consume excrement, branded with hot needles, raped with Coke bottles and routinely beaten with paddles. This movie is merely inspired by the Likens case, with the forthcoming AN AMERICAN CRIME being a more direct cinematic adaptation of the true events and featuring HARD CANDY’s Ellen Page as Likens.
Ketchum’s book and this outstanding film version, revolve around the harshest conceivable coming of age story : its young protagonist, on the cusp of adolescence, is witness to a series of brutal punishments meted out mercilessly on the pretty girl he has taken a shine to. What makes the book – and film – all the more upsetting is that David, who relates his experiences in flashback as an adult, doesn’t / cannot do anything about the abuse for a long, long time. At one point in the book, he notes, of the title character, “She was all I knew of sex. And all I knew of cruelty”. For a long time, he is caught between wanting to save the girl from her suffering and fulfilling his adolescent curiosity about seeing her purely as a sexual object. The uneasy ambiguity about David’s actions, or lack thereof, is just one element that makes this faithful film adaptation so unsettling.
Daniel Farrands and Philip Nutman are the screenwriters given the unenviable task of turning Ketchum’s graphic, grim novel into a releasable movie. Even though the most horrific moments are kept off camera and some of Ketchum’s most extreme scenes of abuse excised altogether, the cinematic incarnation of GIRL NEXT DOOR is, like last year’s film of Ketchum’s THE LOST, a powerfully affecting descent into the all-too-real Hell lurking beneath the nostalgic hue of 1950’s Americana. Some will find it unpalatably harsh, and some have already suggested it belongs in the so-called cycle of “torture porn” horror movies, but what is undeniable is that director Gregory Wilson has made the kind of horror film that “scars” and filled it with remarkable performances (many of them by children in incredibly difficult scenes).
The film is framed by the somber voiceover reflections of David Moran (played as an adult by William Atherton) on his life-altering experiences of growing up in the 50’s. The device is a familiar one from past movies like STAND BY ME (Stephen King is an influence on Ketchum’s work), but its use here adds a poignant dimension to a central character who may otherwise have bordered on the unsympathetic.
David (played as a 12 year old by Daniel Manche) lives with caring parents on the brink of divorce and finds himself attracted to 14 year old Meg (Blythe Auffarth), who has just moved in next door with her younger, disabled sister Susan. The sisters’ parents were tragically killed in a road accident and they have now been taken in by their Aunt Ruth (Blanche Baker) and her sons. Ruth is well known to the youngsters on the street because she has no qualms about giving them beer and doesn’t condescend to them while discussing grown-up matters. David initially relishes his visits to Ruth’s house, but becomes aware that she regularly subjects both girls to horrific abuse, exploiting the hormones and natural aggressions of her sons and using them to contribute to the “punishments” she doles out. Branding Meg a slut for no real reason other than the fact that she’s pretty, Ruth steps up her cruelty after the girl tips off the local cops about what’s really going on. Consequently, she is kept gagged, bound and repeatedly tortured in the basement while David agonizes over what to do.
The complex, disquieting themes and distressing physical violence of the novel have been translated to the screen with consummate skill. Prepare to be appalled by being made witness to the cruelty that exists in our communities and, in some form or another, within ourselves. The story opens as a fairly conventional rites-of-passage piece (albeit one with an escalating sense of dread) before becoming an extended punch-in-the-gut for its second half. At times it’s a bit like watching a non-studio LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT-era variant on the superficially similar but comparatively soapy FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC.
The movie is brave in its refusal to dilute the more disturbing thematic elements of Ketchum’s book for mainstream audiences. While Ruth is an easy character to despise and fear, the story finds a convincing callousness in otherwise normal young boys who, when essentially given carte blanche by an adult to ogle, grope, harm and rape an objectified girl, take the opportunity with no more hesitation than if they were pulling the wings off a trapped fly.
The protracted scenes of torment in Ruth’s basement may be missing some of the more horrible humiliations of the book (and the Likens case) but they are grueling to watch and hard to forget. Auffarth’s commendable performance in these scenes conveys Meg’s sustained suffering so well that director Wilson is able to merely suggest many of the nastier brutalities carried out on her body (including a blowtorch mutilation that chills the soul). Without ever becoming gratuitous, the film goes beyond what we are used to seeing happen to children in American genre cinema, creating a sense of out-of-control everyday evil and helplessness.
The cast is exceptional, with Manche credibly portraying the most sensitive of the boys – a kid who sees the inhumanity of Ruth and his peers but feels powerless to do anything. Baker, meanwhile, gives us one of the most frightening and hateful characters seen on a movie screen for a long time. A severe, intensely embittered matriarch whose sense of compassion has been long destroyed by past events that warped her mind, Baker’s Aunt Ruth is convinced that men only ever want one thing and that women should be “loathsome” to ensure a better life for themselves. In her twisted world view, this involves stubbing cigarettes out on a teenage girl’s body and carving the word “slut” in to her belly. Once seen, Baker’s incarnation of this terrifying figure, is hard to shake off.
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR daringly portrays kids as victims and aggressors in horrendous abuse scenarios. It also refuses to offer the audience the kind of catharsis and climactic release they might expect and hope for. After all the violence perpetrated upon Meg we yearn to see Ruth receive a particularly nasty comeuppance. We are denied this vicarious pleasure, with Wilson smartly avoiding any kind of melodramatic Hollywood finale in which “good” battles against “evil” in a fight to the death. The film’s much subtler, emotional resolution is as wrenching and haunting as the brutality we have endured to reach it. It provides the perfect end to this bleak, brilliant movie
-Steven West
DVD Features
- Widescreen Presentation
- Theatrical Trailer
- Audio Commentary with Director Gregory Wilson, Producer Andrew van den Houten and Cinematographer/Co-Producer William M. Miller
- Audio Commentary with Novelist Jack Ketchum and Screenwriters Daniel Farrands and Philip Nutman
- Interviews With Cast & Crew
- Screenplay (DVD-ROM)
- The Making Of THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
