The Boy Next Door

"Is Jennifer Lopez naked in this?" - The title of a thread on this film's message board on the IMDB.

I have a hunch that the main reason people will be going to see The Boy Next Door is for the answer to this very question.  The answer is kind of, but you don't get to see very much, because the camera is either at an angle where you can't see much, or there is something in the way.  For those who come to see the movie because of that sequence, it's going to feel like a tease.  Not only that, but they'll be getting one of the dumbest erotic thrillers in many a moon.

This film is a nasty piece of work with nothing to recommend.  It's not sexy, thrilling or exciting in any way.  It's actually kind of laughable for all the wrong reasons.  The movie is essentially one of those trashy "woman in peril" movies you see on TV sometimes, only with some nudity and four letter words thrown in.  It's the kind of movie where a woman gets involved with a guy she shouldn't get involved with, realizes her mistake too late, and then the previously nice and sexy guy suddenly turns into a mad slasher from a horror movie who can appear anywhere at anytime to menace the heroine or her family.  It exists for no reason other than to get a couple lingering nude shots of its attractive cast, before it turns into a low rent thriller, where people lurk around in the dark and are assaulted by cats who come flying at them from off camera.

The plot: Jennifer Lopez is Claire Peterson, a high school teacher who is going through a very bad time with her husband (John Corbett) after she caught him cheating on her with a co-worker.  They're separated, and her best friend (Kristin Chenoweth) is pushing her to move on, but Claire isn't quite sure she wants to break up the family for the sake of her timid and meek teenage son, Kevin (Ian Nelson), who comes across as the wimpiest and blandest teenager ever captured on film.  Into Claire's life comes Noah Sandborn (Ryan Guzman), the titular boy next door.  He's a hunky teen who is "almost twenty" (as the movie tells us), likes to pose nude in front of his window where Claire can see him from her bedroom and is handy around the house, as he helps Claire fix her broken garage door and even does some work on her car.

Noah has come to live next door to look after an aging relative, who needs to go to the hospital soon, just so he can be written out of the rest of the movie with no consequence.  With the relative gone, Noah is alone in the house, and starts to take an unhealthy interest in watching Claire from his own window.  One night, when they are both alone, he invites her over to his house, and after a while, she makes the mistake of having sex with him.  She regrets it immediately the next morning, but the damage has been done, and Noah is now obsessed with her.  He quickly adapts to the nature of a slasher villain, screaming his lines, giving lingering evil glares, and always hanging around her son in a way that seems unwholesome.  Before long, he's blackmailing her by breaking into her classroom, and hanging nude photos of her from the night they made love all over the walls.  Naturally, it turns out that Noah has a history of violence (his dad was killed in a suspicious "car accident"), and it probably won't be long until the people around Claire start turning up dead.

The Boy Next Door is the kind of movie where you can walk in late, and already know everything that's happened, as well as everything that's going to happen.  There's not an instant of originality or inspiration, and there's no reason it needed to be made.  Everybody on screen knows what kind of movie they're in, and gives the minimal effort, nothing more.  Director Rob Cohen (Alex Cross) shoots the film as blandly and with as little enthusiasm as possible.  There is nothing here that is not routine.  The only entertainment comes from some lines of dialogue that earn some bad laughs.  There are quite a few that I think are intended to be serious, but had me covering my face, trying to hold back the laughs that desperately wanted to come out.  This movie almost invites you to talk back to the screen at times.

Unintended comedy aside, this is an uncharismatic and low rent thriller that exists simply to earn a few bucks from people who are asking the same question I quoted back at the start of this review.  Whatever your local theater may be charging, it's not worth the price to find out.  Don't let the sexy ad campaign allow this dim movie to steal your money and your time.

See related merchandise at Amazon.com!

0 comments