Genre: Horror

Director: Marcus Dunstan

Cast: Josh Stewart, Alex Essoe, and Bill Engvall

Studio: Fortress Features

Runtime: 86 Minutes

Release: On Digital HD, Starz Demand, and Blu-Ray September 6, 2016.

Rated: NR

Rating ★★★★★

The Neighbor is one of the most extraordinarily average movies I’ve seen in recent memory. While it succeeds in holding your interest, it fails to grip you in any meaningful way. It’s a by-the-numbers horror movie that chooses to play it safe.

The Neighbor follows John (Josh Stewart) and his girlfriend Rosie (Alex Essoe) who’ve moved into the small town of Cutter, Mississippi. After Rosie goes missing one day, John quickly suspects his shady neighbor Troy (Bill Engvall) is behind her disappearance. After investigating, John learns that there is much more at stake than he thought.

John and Rosie try to escape Troy’s house.

This isn’t the first horror film to deal with a creepy neighbor. The classic movie Rear Window comes to mind, which, interestingly, The Neighbor refers to. Instead of aiming to be unique though, The Neighbor seems content with delivering an experience that’s been done multiple times before, and with far better results.

The story is really what keeps The Neighbor from being anything other than okay. After the set-up, it’s fairly easy to realize the direction the film is going and when it will get there. The storyline is presented competently enough, with well-done pacing and some fairly tense sequences, that it never feels like a chore to watch. However, there’s never a truly memorable moment, or a shocking twist that stays with you.

One plot element that feels unneeded is a subplot that involves John and Rosie helping John’s uncle Niel (Kenny Barr) run his drug business. Much of the earlier parts of The Neighbor is dedicated to this subplot and it feels forced. It’s almost as if the script were already completed but then at the last minute, someone shoved this idea in it. The scenes dedicated to this plot point slow the film down; it would have benefited The Neighbor had these scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.

As a whole, the acting is all serviceable. The actors do a fine job portraying their characters but unfortunately don’t really give them any depth to make you truly care about them. Engvall is the true standout as he’s surprisingly effective at playing a very creepy Troy. Given Engvall’s stand-up comedy roots, it was a delight to learn what a decent villain he’s capable of playing. Hopefully, he’ll be offered a better film where he can truly flex

Troy taking care of business.

his skills.

Director Marcus Dunstan makes some questionable choices in directing, one of them being using footage that looks like it was filmed on a super-8 camera to use as scene transitions. It seems like they were done to give the film a distinct visual style flair, but they come across as distracting more than anything else. Also, since these are done only a few times in the beginning and never again, it becomes a question of why even include them to begin with?

At best, The Neighbor is a rainy day film. You might find it when flicking through channels, and you watch it because you have nothing better to do. While The Neighbor is executed decently enough, it’s hard to recommend due to how little it stands out in a genre that’s saturated with much better films of this kind.

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