Starring: America Olivo, Christian Campbell, Lauren Rooney
Find it: IMDB
The title is something of a misnomer, since The Girl (Olivo) is nobody's neighbour; she wanders from street to street massacring whole households seemingly without cause. One fateful day she arrives on Don Carpenter's (Campbell) doorstep, ties the poor chump up and sets about violently torturing the guy. That's almost as far as Neighbor goes with plot, spending the rest of its time torturing Don and murdering his friends. There's a brief interlude in the middle that shoots forward in time - although it wasn't until afterwards that I realised this - I'd assumed that Neighbor had gone all avant-garde and just run off in a different direction.
At times the movie veers towards comedy horror, with the filthy script ("go eat a bowl of dicks") and madcap performance from America Olivo preventing it from being too serious. Even victim Don doesn't seem to be taking his situation too seriously. The torture scenes however, are anything but funny. While not all of the effects work (Don's plastic feet are terrible) enough of them do to make one think twice about bringing a mid-movie snack into Neighbor.
Thankfully, the decent effects are backed up by a funny script, a likeable set of characters and a mean performance from Olivo; channeling Freddy Krueger by way of Penny from off've Big Bang Theory. Young foul-mouthed male characters are usually the worst kind of characters, but Don and his friends are affable enough for their camaraderie to shine through. You really want to see them survive the onslaught of The Girl and her craziness. It's good that they're so nice. After all, everybody needs good neighbours.
Alas, Neighbor does drag towards the end, and never quite recovers from its own confusing midsection. The ending is predictable. Like every annoying neighbour, this one can't help but outstay its welcome.
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