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"The Girl Next Door" dir. by Gregory Wilson



The Girl Next Door, is not a teen comedy starring Emile Hirsch and Elisha Cuthbert, but rather a super depressing movie about a young girl who gets tortured and raped for almost the entire duration of the film.
So this film is based on the book by Jack Ketchup who also re-wrote this book under the title "The Woman" which also was turned into a film by Lucky McGee. Keep in mind that the book is actually based on the real-life story of Gertrude Baniszewski (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Baniszewski) who was a real life psycho bitch who actually tortured and killed a young girl with the help of the neighbourhood kids (including her own kids).
This movie starts off with an adult David (played by William Atherton, the asshole reporter from Die Hard) reminiscing about pain and then jumping back to his childhood.
The tone is hard to make out during the first 15-20 minutes as the lines are beyond corny as they try to make young "Davy" a cross between The Fonz and Corey Feldman from "Stand By Me" while staying true to Jack Ketchum's greasy slick-back hairstyle. Actually lots of elements of this movie are reminiscent of "Stand By Me." The acting comes across as bad, but for some reason it seems to fit the 1950's setting.
So Davy is quickly introduced to Meg (the poor gal that gets tortured) and they begin to flirt with each other, despite the fact that Meg looks about 22 and Davy looks like he's 10. They catch a crawfish and things are actually pleasant.
This doesn't last long as we are soon introduced to the queen mother of all biotches, Aunt Ruth. This woman is such a c*** I almost punched my TV screen while watching this flick. Everything about her is aggravating and her kids are too. She's also super incesty, openly talking smut with her children and encouraging them to be perverted asswipes.
The kids for some reason play a game that other young girls from the neighbourhood voluntarily join in on. The game's rules and objectives are vague and not fully revealed, but it involves tying up girls and making them confess to.... masturbating...???
So Meg is forced to play the game. They tie her up, strip her down and begin to torture her in every possible way you can imagine... and then some.
It's horribly painful to watch as these god damned children have their way with her. I have no idea how they got away with shooting some of these scenes with actual child actors. It's super fucked up and it's even more of a bummer as you watch young Davy do nothing but watch his "buddies" rape and torture Meg.
*******************SPOILER ALERT*********************
So this goes on and on, progressively getting worse and worse as they up the ante with the final shocker being Aunt Ruth blowing away Meg's vagina with a blowtorch.
This whole time, I was thinking "Oh my god! This is really hardcore, who would want people to see this?" But I kept reassuring myself that it was done with intent, as at some point Meg would get the revenge every audience member has been begging for this whole time.
But NO!
She just ended up dying from her wounds.
And then the movie ended.
And then I just stared at the credits in total silence. I didn't know how to feel.
So, I took a look on the interwebs to see how other people received this movie and I was shocked. On IMDB I saw a slew of user reviews giving this movie a 10/10 saying that it's a masterpiece. Most people explained that due to the fact that is was so genuinely upsetting it must have been a well executed film. I don't know, I mean... it's based off of a real story that is legitimately nauseating... so it really wouldn't matter who made the movie, it was bound to be a tough story to deal with from the get go. If you must give anyone credit for the story being so evocative of miserable emotions, you can give that credit to Gertrude Baniszewski.
In conclusion, I think Jack Ketchum is a deranged lunatic that should be locked up.
This is a miserable film with no positivity whatsoever. It will leave you hating men, women, kids, humans, etc. I honestly feel like I was left with more from "A Serbian Film" than I was with this...
If I had to rate this... which I don't... I would give it a 2/10.
Anyone else see this movie? Any thoughts????
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