THE NEIGHBOUR. (2016) WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY MARCUS DUNSTAN. DISTRIBUTED BY ARROW FILMS. MUSIC BY CHARLIE CLOUSER. CINEMATOGRAPHY BY ERIC LEACH.
STARRING JOSH STEWART, ALEX ESSOE,
MELISSA BOLONA, JACQUELINE FLEMING, BILL ENGVALL, LUKE EDWARDS,
RONNIE GENE BLEVINS AND SKIPP SUDDUTH.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This is a deliciously tense, tight, taut
thriller (yeah, all the t's...!) from
the guy who apparently scripted no fewer than four of
the SAW horror films.
Now, I hated those movies myself, absolutely bloody hated
every second I was made to watch
of them, but there are millions more who don't hate them so, yes, that can be
counted as an achievement, haha.
This film is set in a place called Cutter in Mississippi. I've never heard
of Cutter, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Or it could
be fictional, we just don't know. Anyway, an ex-army chap called John
is the lead guy. He's kind of cute in a scruffy kind of 'loser'
way.
He lives on
an isolated old ranch with his hot girlfriend Rosie and he makes ends
meet by running dodgy errands for his even dodgier Uncle Neil. Fake
license plates, drugs, stuff like that. Dodgy stuff. Thing is,
though, Rosie and John daydream about doing one last dodgy job and
escaping to Mexico forever on the proceeds, living the rest of their lives in
comfort and anonymity.
Dontcha
just love it when films have protagonists who are planning to do just
one more dirty job, one more heist, one more bank robbery, etc.,
before they're out of 'the business' for
good, free and clear with a nice little nest-egg under their belts to
help 'em go straight and set 'em up for life in their new homes...?
Yeah, when you hear that, you just know that
things are gonna go tits-up for them in the biggest possible way,
haha.
Remember
Silvio Dante in brilliant HBO mafia drama THE SOPRANOS
doing his 'bit' from
THE GODFATHER to keep
the rest of the outsized leisure-suited mob dons amused? 'Just
when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in...!' Cue
loads of insincere mafioso laughter. Yeah,
that's what I'm talking about...!
In John
and Rosie's case, the fly in the ointment preventing them from flying
off into the sunset together is their titular 'neighbour,'
Troy. Troy lives in the ranch
next door (that's what makes him The Neighbour, see...?)
with his two grown-up sons,
Cooper and Harley.
On the
night before John and Rosie plan to skedaddle forever with some of
Unky Neil's hard-earned stealings, Troy comes over to the young
couple's house with a coupla beers and essentially tells them that he
knows what they did last summer. Or,
to be precise, he lets 'em know that he
knows that they're up to their tonsils in quare dealings, as we'd say
here in Ireland.
You can
practically see John's hackles rising, the way you would in a dog who
senses the presence of an enemy. He doesn't invite the super-cocky
Troy to stick around for a few more tinnies, put it that way. Troy's
definitely cute too, by the way, in an older man kind of way. Anyone
who knows me knows I like my older men, and Troy is at least a solid eight-and-a-half out of ten.
The
next day, when Rosie inexplicably goes missing just before the couple
are due to high-tail it out of town with a nice stash of illegal
dough, John's Spidey-sense is not only tingling, it's telling him
straight out that Troy-From-Next-Door is in it up to his, well,
tonsils again.
John's got to
break into Troy's house and see if Rosie's there. Well, he doesn't
have to. I distinctly remember thinking at the time that he should
have just buggered off with the money. He'd never have been short of hot chicks to share a tequila with. Women are
such sluts for guys with a few quid in their pockets, if history- and the tabloids- have taught us anything...!
John seems to
have a strong attachment, however, to his spouse or significant other
so, whatever, let him go if that's what he wants to do. Off he
toddles, anyway, but before long he's caught up in a situation he
couldn't have imagined in his wildest nightmares. I'm dying to tell
you guys what the deal is but that'd be too much of a spoiler for
such a terrific film. In other words, I wouldn't want to ruin it for ye because it's just too good for that.
I will
say, though, that from the
moment John slowly turns the knob on Troy's front door, the tension
is non-stop and nearly heart-stopping at times. I found myself
screeching advice at various
characters
at various junctures, something I only bother to do when a film is
really, really exciting
and suspense-filled.
THE NEIGHBOUR certainly has
suspense, excitement and tension by the bucketload, and flawless
performances from all the lead actors don't exactly harm matters,
either.
The set-up
and shenanigans in Troy's house are everything you might have wished
them to be (check out
the home video scene!) but, again, I can't tell y'all what the deal is. I surely
do wish I could but I can't. And, believe me, it hurts me way more
than it hurts you guys, that's how involved I get with my reviews and how much of a big blabbermouth I am,
haha.
If you
missed this excellent horror-thriller in your local cinema in
mid-September 2016, fear not. It'll be out on DVD courtesy of ARROW
FILMS on 31st
Oct., which of course is Halloween to all you crazed horror fans out
there.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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