Others, including myself, feel a deep queasiness about the film’s existence. Despite the "message," the camera lingers. It exploits the very suffering it claims to condemn. Because we are watching a fictionalized version of a real girl’s death, are we not also complicit in the voyeurism that the film critiques? I cannot say I "enjoyed" The Girl Next Door (2007). I can barely say I "appreciated" it. But I cannot deny that it has stuck with me for fifteen years.
Critics at the time were split. Some praised Ketchum’s unflinching narrative and Wilson’s restrained direction (the worst violence often happens just off-screen, heard but not seen). They argued that by making the audience watch, the film acts as a eulogy for Likens and a warning against mob mentality.
Trigger Warning: This post discusses graphic depictions of child abuse, torture, and sexual violence. Please proceed with caution.
Based on the 1989 novel by Jack Ketchum (the pen name of Dallas Mayr), which was itself inspired by the real-life murder of Sylvia Likens in 1965, this film is not entertainment. It is a document of descent. It is a 91-minute-long stomach punch. The story follows two teenage brothers, David and Ralph, living in a quiet New Jersey suburb in the late 1950s. Their idyllic summer is interrupted when their aunt, Ruth, takes in two orphaned sisters, Meg and Susan. At first, David is smitten with the older sister, Meg (played with heartbreaking vulnerability by Blythe Auffarth). She is the "girl next door"—beautiful, mysterious, and kind.
The 2007 film The Girl Next Door (directed by Gregory Wilson) is perhaps one of the most infamous examples of the “extreme horror” subgenre. It is a film that arrives with a reputation so brutal that it has effectively been blacklisted from casual conversation. You don’t recommend this movie to a friend looking for a fun scare. You warn people about it.
This is a movie for no one. It is too graphic for mainstream drama audiences, and too emotionally devastating for gore-hounds looking for a fun splatter fest. It exists in a lonely, dark corner of cinema reserved for those who want to stare into the abyss and ask, "What am I capable of?"
