The Boy Next Door
Dustin Chase
From the director of the 3rd Mummy movie and xXx, director Rob Cohen hits an all- time low, which is quite an achievement for him. The Boy Next Door embraces its trashy premise from the moment our heroine, played by JLo, comes into contact with the tight shirt wearing “boy” who lives next door. In reality, Guzman, whose credits include a bunch of those dance competition films, is nearly 30. To feed the MILF trend, he is supposedly playing a 19 year old. The script sets everything up like a scene out of Wes Craven’s Scream, with two insanely large farm houses side by side, in the middle of nowhere. The dialogue abhorrent, it becomes very clear that the film makers are intentionally trying to push this towards the ridiculous.
Recently separated mother Claire Peterson (Lopez) is trying to get her life back on track. Dealing with her husband’s indiscretions, she becomes a little too friendly with the teenage neighbor next door, Noah Sandborn (Guzman), who is helping his ailing uncle. Claire’s son Kevin (Ian Nelson) needs a male role model, and Noah appears to be it until his lust for Claire turns into something deadly. Claire gives into a night of passion that makes a monster out of a man boy that threatens not only to destroy her entire life but risk her family’s wellbeing in the process.
Basically cheap softcore horror porn with a farfetched, unrealistic plot that only desperate housewives or grocery store romance novel readers might appreciate.
You have already heard some of the worst dialogue in the trailer, like the double entendre’s “I love your mom’s cookies”. The Boy Next Door is basically cheap softcore horror porn with a farfetched, unrealistic plot that only desperate housewives or grocery store romance novel readers might appreciate. The fascination begins as Noah charms Claire with his interest in the Classics; he does a little strip tease next door, and then the panties start to fly. The overall nudity of the film doesn’t make the film as provocative as the crude language and the camera maneuvers that suggest more than it actually shows. Maybe the film’s most absurd moment (and there are many!) is following Noah fracturing the skull of a fellow student. He isn’t arrested, but instead sent to the vice principal’s office (not even the principal), and only after he greatly disparages Chenoweth’s authority figure (following shoving her to the ground) is he expelled. And cue laughter.
Besides this just being one of the worst films you will likely see in 2015, The Boy Next Door and, to some extent Jennifer Lopez, work against the strides that female actors like Cate Blanchett, Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain have made towards gender equality in roles. Female characters are popular, they make money, and people want to see them; Blanchett echoed this on stage at the Oscars in 2014, but characters and roles like Claire Peterson are the poorly written types that reinforce the negative stereotype. Sadly, The Boy Next Door, because of its trashy premise and Lopez’s appeal, will make more money than four of the 2015 best actress nominee’s films combined.
Final Thought
Unfathomably awful, you can find more valuable things in a trash can.