THE BOY NEXT DOOR – The Blu Review

“Oh my God, He’s threatened my life, my son, my job!”

The unusually stupid THE BOY NEXT DOOR was a ‘bunnyboiler’, a FATAL ATTRACTION-inspired thriller that taught a valuable lesson about the dangers of hooking up with nutjobs. Jennifer Lopez played Claire Peterson, a 40-ish teacher living with her 16-year old son Kevin (Ian Nelson) after kicking out her cheating husband (John Corbett). Her foray back to the dating scene is a disaster so she soon turns her attentions to Noah (Ryan Guzman) a hunky 19-year old who has moved in with his ailing Grandpa next door (and whose biceps are introduced before he his). At first Noah is a perfect gentleman. He repairs her garage door, replaces her alternator, and helps Kevin, who’s being bullied at school, gain the confidence to ask out the cutie that works at the local hardware store. After pie and flirting and cookies, Claire and Noah finally knock boots one night while Kevin is away with dad. Claire immediately regrets the encounter but Noah won’t take no for an answer so spends the rest of the film upending Claire’s life in increasingly violent ways.

THE BOY NEXT DOOR started out mediocre, spiraled downward, and thudded with an utterly incompetent conclusion. It was saddled with one of the more improbable and laughably absurd scripts to come down the pike in a long while, insulting the audience’s intelligence at every possible opportunity. Since she teaches English (“The Classics”), Noah charms her by quoting the Iliad and gifting her with a ‘first edition’ copy of the book (published in 700b.c – “found it for a buck at a garage sale”). Noah looks like a ripped Calvin Klein model with a nice house to himself (Grandpa’s in the hospital) so you’d think he’d have a revolving door of willing babes, but the script never presents a speck of motivation for his singular J-Lo booty fixation. A naked young blonde pops up in his room to administer a Lewinsky in one scene, but even that seems to be for the benefit of Claire, who continues to gaze out her window at him. My favorite is when Claire sneaks into Noah’s house to retrieve their sex tape that he stealthily filmed, knowing she has just five minutes before he returns. In that time she not only discovers his concealed camera, but a twisted shrine to her and his sinister computer files which expose his guilt in the killing of his parents and the attempted murder of her ex. Good work! Movies should be fun, and this one is in an unintended way, but the source of entertainment shouldn’t only come from identifying plot holes and other assorted implausibilities. This was an irredeemably bad movie.

A film as inept as THE BOY NEXT DOOR should at least have more camp value, but I couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for the scene in which Noah papers Claire’s classroom with (non-explicit) photos taken of the pair banging, which she frantically has to tear down before her students arrive. Nor was I moved by the barn-burning finale, in which the audience applauded when Claire jabs Noah in the eye with her son’s EpiPen (never seen that before!). Every plot twist, and device is seen coming from a mile away, and every character is paper thin, including the supporting ones which are there simply to pose as obstacles or victims, especially poor Kristin Chenoweth as Claire’s sassy but doomed BFF.

Director Rob Cohen (who made the equally retarded ALEX CROSS), from a script by Barbara Curry, seemed determined to force this material into the moldy mold of horror formulas. For the movie to be anything more than a mechanical stalkathon, we needed to experience Noah as an ambiguous figure —a kind of male equivalent of the Glenn Close character in FATAL ATTRACTION; a quasi-sympathetic monster whose dementia is really a twisted form of emotional pain. But we were never allowed to see Claire through his eyes as this movie wasn’t interested in much else besides paranoia and cheap thrills. With her perfect hair, designer clothes, and distracting lip gloss, Lopez is miscast as a suburban teacher/mom (though she does wear glasses while teaching “The Classics”, which helps). The 46-year old actress looks 30, while Guzman, a 27-year old actor playing the 19-year old title character, looks his age, therefore the single sex scene between them hardly looked like a cougar seducing a youngster but simply like two attractive people more or less the same age makin’ bacon.

The good news is that the pic’s running time of 92 minutes was mercifully brief, and a fine showcase for J-Lo’s glamour and Ryan Guzman’s washboard abs. THE BOY NEXT DOOR was slickly paced but forgettable, junky, retread crap, but it was still miles better than 50 SHADES OF GRAY.

THE BOY NEXT DOOR will be released on Blu-ray from Universal April 28^th and We Are Movie Geeks has had a peek:

THE BOY NEXT DOOR’s MPEG-4 AVC Coded, 1080p res at 2.40:1 high definition presentation offers a consistent, stable image. It’s not one that reveals brilliant colors and complex details, however. The film is fairly dark and heavily stylized throughout, and with that darkness comes a slight flatness, a light dreariness, and frequent pastiness. Nevertheless, the image enjoys a fine general crispness and definition on clothes and faces. Universal’s Blu-ray appears to replicate the intended look well enough; just don’t expect a dazzling and bright eye-popping transfer.

THE BOY NEXT DOOR arrives on Blu-ray with an energetic DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack. The track plays with a full, robust surround support and finely spaced front end elements. Clarity is always top-notch, whether musical or dialog.

Universal offers up a decent amount of extras for their THE BOY NEXT DOOR Blu-ray:

• Audio Commentary: Director Rob Cohen defends his work for 90 minutes, talking at length about the budget limitations and working with Ms Lopez. A good, passionate commentary for a bad film.
• The Making of The Boy Next Door – runs 9 minutes and is an undistinguished featurette that hastily covers the film’s themes and story, with an emphasis on the car chase and barn-burning finale.
• Deleted Scenes Vicky Wants Claire to Help (2:01), Noah Runs Into Claire (3:02), Garrett Asks Claire Out on a Date (1:53), Claire Asks Vicky For a Favor (1:47), and Claire is Angry at Vicky (0:53).