NOTE: This is not to be confused with the 2004 Elisha Cuthbert atrocity of the same name, nor the Sundance film AN AMERICAN CRIME, which deals with the same subject, only in a “based on a true story” context. That film stars Catherine Keener and HARD CANDY’s Ellen Page, and opens in New York and Los Angeles in two weeks.
JACK KETCHUM’S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR is the best film I’ve seen that you couldn’t pay me to see again. Well made, flawlessly acted, clearly written. But these are just technicalities critics hide behind because, well, how often does a movie really DEAL with what it’s about? In most instances, the critic’s job is to tell you whether or not the bolts on a movie are tight and won’t fly apart when you try to use it.
I can’t justify or even hypothesize about the purpose of JACK KETCHUM’S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. How it’s supposed to enlighten, inform or entertain the way any movie is supposed to. But I am also confronted with my failure to justify my own revulsion at, and hatred of, this movie. I don’t know how I can possibly damn a film to the depths when it did its job, even though I’m having a hard time trying to find out what that job actually is. Something that possesses the raw power that this film has can’t be glibly joked at or raged aside. So those “technicalities” are really all a guy like me has left.
Right about now, I’m just lamenting how well my day was going before I watched it.
In 1958, young David (played in childhood by Daniel Manche and in adulthood by a sorely missed William Atherton) befriends Meg Laughlin, (Blythe Auffarth) who is staying with her Polio-ridden sister in the house of Ruth Chandler (Blanche Baker) and her sons. The neighborhood boys really like Missus Chandler… She gives them beer… They’ll do anything she says…
Ruth Chandler comes across to me as the White Trash Miss Havisham. She is resentful of Meg’s youth and beauty and angry at her own failings and choices in life. At first this manifests itself in subtle insults. Then not-so-subtle berating. Then abuse. Then abuse of her sister while she watches. Then… Torture.
Why these scenes are tough to watch may be why I think the film “works.” I’m a critic at a horror site, folks. I see depravity, murder and hateful bloodletting on a seemingly weekly basis. But JACK KETCHUM’S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR is the only film I’ve seen in my brief tenure that views torture and denigration as an act of cruelty and human waste. Not the cheeky sideshow that the Eli Roths of the world would have you believe it is. After viewing movies like CAPTIVITY and HOSTEL (Read Royce’s Hostel II Review Here), I wanted a movie that had the guts to deal with torture and not break out the top hat and cane to dance off the side of the stage. Well, for better or ill, I got it.
And… I was about to criticize author and co-screenwriter Jack Ketchum for plastering a fictional context over a real-life event. His novel THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (unread by me) is the fictionalized story of Sylvia Likens, who was killed in 1965 by Gertrude Baniszewski and other children from the neighborhood. Though the group aspect part of the real story, the film also recalls the death of Kitty Genovese, who was murdered in an apartment complex in Queens in 1964 in front of all her neighbors. Not one lifted a finger or raised a voice to help her. I was about to say that putting it in fictional terms was a cop-out, but now I’m not so sure. This story is hard enough to take even in a fictional context. Adding the extra layer of reality would make it unwatchable with the voracity that Ketchum and director Gregory M. Wilson attack it. Names may have been changed to protect the innocent, but that could go for all of the people involved as well as you, me and probably even Ketchum himself. To put such evil in relatable terms doesn’t reveal Ketchum to be a coward. It just reveals that he’s human.
The thriller escape ending, however, is inexcusable.
Even though it feels out of place, I will discuss the acting and technical virtues of JACK KETCHUM’S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. Wilson and his cinematographer William M. Miller and editor M.J. Fiore create palpable and dark menace under the bright and cheery atmosphere of 1958. There are no orphan shots and every frame seems to be there for a reason. Baker as Ruth just gets points alone for not reducing her character to Lady Macbeth histrionics. But the actor I was impressed with the most was young Daniel Manche as David. I am unaccustomed to seeing such a young actor work so successfully as a sorrowful and scared voice of reason that no one will listen to.
So the film “works,” but it is lost to me for what end. I can’t imagine anyone leaving this film wealthy for knowledge or fulfilled in emotion. For all I know, it is self-contained in its true horror. There is no breathing room provided for us as viewers. But the fact that a film can bring about such strong emotions without pandering or seeming false MUST count for something. And the fact that JACK KETCHUMS THE GIRL NEXT DOOR deplores its cruelty instead of reveling in it counts for something more.
I have been assured that the book is even more graphic.
Something tells me I’ll be happier until the end of my days if I never read it.
***1/2 out of 4
Read all of Dr. Royce Clemens reviews in his Archives
If you have not heard of or read the book, read the links below then buy it, you will be happy you did!
For More Info Read Our Interview With Jack Ketchum Here
More Info on the True Story of Sylvia Marie Likens by Denise Noe
