The Girl Next Door (2007)
Directed by Gregory M Wilson
Sometimes the scariest stories are the true ones. That is the case for the Girl Next Door. It is loosely based on the murder of Sylvia Likens and the book The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. Both are terribly unnerving stories about an abusive woman mutilating and torturing a young girl. Since true crime isn’t my deal for this blog, lets talk about this movie.
The Girl Next Door is about a young boy named David whom befriends a teenage girl named Meg whom is in the care of her aunt. He soon sees first hand the terrible treatment of Meg at the hands of the sadistic aunt Ruth and her awful kids. Ruth puts Meg through emotional and physical abuse so bad that she eventually passes away. There are some really brutal scenes of torture in this and some of the most effective parts, are what you don’t see. It is a movie that sticks with you for sure. The most impactful scene involves a curling iron and Meg’s…..um lady area. Many of these instances are based on Sylvia Likens, if you want to know more about her, read up or listen to some podcasts, there are a bunch.
The acting is pretty solid. Blanche Baker is amazing as Ruth, she’s really menacing and despicable. Blythe Auffarth is decent as Meg, a little wooden at times but all in all ok. Daniel Manche also puts in a solid job as the young David. The other cast of kids are mediocre to decent, nothing really noteworthy I guess. The camera work and style of the film is effective and adds to the atmosphere of the movie as a whole. The scenes in the basement with the dim lighting and eerie shadows really makes them more unsettling.
The special effects aren’t really the focus of this movie, and for a film of this type they don’t really need to be. This movie relies greatly on the acting and atmosphere and that where its strength lies. Yes there are some gruesome scenes with blood but they’re treated differently than something like Hostel or Saw.
The Girl Next Door is a greatly unsettling movie with solid acting and it really sticks with you. It is hard to grade a movie like this because of the awful things that happen and the realistic feel to the whole thing. Knowing it is based of true events just adds to the feeling. I have only seen this twice, so it isn’t super rewatchable but I give this a B.
