The Girl Next Door
Spoiler Warnings: For those of you who have not seen the movie yet, this review gives away plot details.
Stephen King called it “The first authentically shocking American film I’ve seen since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer over 20 years ago.”
Though I have not seen ‘Henry’, I have to agree that this is one of the most shocking films I have seen. The last time I was this disturbed about what human beings can do to each other was when I saw the movie ‘Mockingbirds Don’t Sing’; that too was based on a real event.
The film is based on Jack Ketchum’s novel of the same name, which itself is a fictionalized account of Sylvia Likens’s true story; a young girl tortured to death by Gertrude Baniszewski, her children and other children in the neighborhood when she and her sister Jenny came to live with them three months prior to Sylvia’s death.
The Girl Next Door is told in flashback form by David Moran, still guilty ridden about events that changed his life forever; the torture and death of Meg Loughlin.
The story is set in 1950’s suburban America where Meg, played by Blythe Auffarth, and her sister Susan (who is disabled and walks on crutches) come to live with their aunt Ruth after their parents die in a car accident. They all start out getting along perfectly fine and young David almost immediately starts developing feelings for Meg after their first meeting at the riverbank.
Things go downhill fast from that point on; Ruth, who is overly obsessed with feminine purity, starts to verbally abuse the two girls and shame them in front of other children, including David. Things soon become physical and often with neighborhood children watching; eventually leading to Meg being tied up in the basement and being used as a play thing, by Ruth, her children and other neighborhood kids.
Though David tries to get Meg out of the house, convincing her that she should get out and get help and come back for Susan later, Meg is unwilling to leave Susan behind, fearing that she might suffer the same torment that she has. Much to David’s horror, Meg is caught trying to get Susan with her and is taken back to the basement.
In the final moments of the movie, when David goes back to the basement he witnesses one of Ruth’s children raping Meg, which is watched by several other neighborhood kids and Ruth herself, claiming that Meg isn’t good for anything else.
When the son finishes with Meg, Ruth asks them who’s next and calls on David and one of the other neighborhood children, Eddie, to do so. Eddie says he wants to cut her instead and Ruth agrees, doing the cutting herself so that no man would want to touch her or see her anymore.
Ruth ‘reasons’ that though no one would want to see Meg naked anymore, Meg herself would be attracted to others and she still has something that could give her pleasure and wants to take it away. David is horrified and tries to run away, only to be grabbed and tied up and having to witness Ruth burning Meg between her legs.
Meg, Susan and David are locked up in the basement and David comes up with a plan to literally smoke their way out and sets fire to a bucket full of flammable material. When Ruth comes down to see the ruckus, David hits her in the head with one of Susan’s crutches and then beats her a second time. One of Ruth’s sons attacks David but is stopped by police officers who were alerted by the smoke.
The police checks Ruth’s pulse but finds none, he is shocked to see Meg and even more horrified when David tells him it was Ruth who did it. The officer tells David to stay with Meg while he takes Susan out.
Meg, badly bruised and near death, asks David to take back her mother’s ring, which Ruth had taken from her earlier. David does so and gives it back to Meg who moments later succumbs to her injuries and dies.
If you truly want to be horrified by torture, you don’t need to see ‘entertaining’ movies like Hostel and Saw, you need to watch The Girl Next Door. This movie shows torture for what it truly is; an act of cruelty.
Daniel Manche is perfect in his role as a young David; portraying his young love and the inner battle he goes through when he realizes he is the only one that is able to help Meg; he doesn’t have his parents to turn to and he would be betraying his friends. Manche, at a tender age of 13/14 years old, handles the pressure of these scenes like a pro and delivers.
Blanche Baker, who plays Ruth, is a women you love to hate in this movie. Baker cooks up a perfect dish of evil as Ruth loses her mind more and more. The lessons Ruth teaches to her boys about women are just wrong. Ruth has such a low opinion about women that you can’t help but wonder what made her like this.
However, the real star of this movie is Blythe Auffarth; her performance as Meg is spot on; what she is able to portray with her face is even better then her perfect line delivery. The subtle looks of compassion and sadness about David’s lack of understanding in the beginning to the fear she feels during the torture scenes.
The movie is definitely not for the faint of heart. At some point I even forgot to breathe and during the last ten to fifteen minutes tears flowed freely. This is definitely one of the most disturbing movies I have seen.
No loud noises or fast flickering images as we have come to know from movies like Hostel and Saw and distract from the story; this movie shows quietly horrifying the reality that girls like Sylvia Likens had to go through.
