If Nicholas Sparks had written Disturbia, I suspect it would have looked a lot like The Boy Next Door. In reality, I feel like Jennifer Lopez went to her agent, and said, “I’m still pretty damn hot, could we make a movie about that?” Fortunately for the likely 100% female audience that attended, Ryan Guzman, the fresh face they got to play her young stalker, is damn gorgeous as well.
The plot is pretty simple: Lopez’s character, a teacher, has an impulsive one-night stand with the boy next door, who turns out to be a student. The script makes it a point to announce that he’s 18, so its not that wrong. Anyway, Lopez is full of regret the next morning, and she apologetically breaks it off. But Guzman is not having it, and he becomes violently obsessive.
As to the quality of the film, it all depends on what you want going in. If you are in the mood for a trashy film with sexy people, then you will be satisfied. If you want to feel more cultured for the experience, I recommend seeing just about anything else. Is it predictable? Yes. Does it play into stereotypes? Absolutely. But what did you expect from the trailer? The movie delivers what it promises.
Kristin Chenoweth and John Corbett fill out the cast with solid performances. The Boy Next Door is one of those fun bad movies. The scary parts make you jump. The acting, writing and directing are totally fine. The premise is a tired one, but it all comes back to the audience’s expectations.
The film isn’t announcing itself as the next Hitchcock project. The words “fresh” and “groundbreaking” aren’t in any trailer that I’ve seen. It didn’t get any award nominations, but it also deserves better than the 12% Rotten Tomatoes has given it. There are terrible movies out there that don’t make you laugh and have actors who make you cringe. The Boy Next Door may feel a bit perfunctory, but it hit all the marks that it was aiming for.
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