Love thy Neighbour....

Welcome to my film review blog. Before I get this wonderful review under way, a little background. I'm addicted to film, I spend hours engrossed in this form of escapism, at the cinema, on my laptop and even on archaic TV. I will watch (almost) anything. I'm not pretending to be this uber amazing film buff, but I do love watching them, and I do love giving my opinion, so what better way to spend a boring afternoon than finding one to watch and then bashing or bigging it up.

So, with that in mind, let me introduce you to my first review.

Title: Neighbour
Date of Release : 2010
Genre : Horror

Synopsis : A mysterious woman turns up in your average American suburban town and wreaks havoc on nice guy Don Carpenter and his unsuspecting band member-friends and girlfriend. Will Don survive? And if so, how much of him will be left?

This film is fairly slow to start, and even more difficult to follow! The storyline itself is simple enough, crazy girl is eating cereal in the kitchen. The camera man follows her ass upstairs and we are shown two people duct taped to office chairs (everyone in this town must shop at one office supplies store as EVERYONE has the same office chairs in this film!). Needless to say, one of them is already dead, and after having a tap fitting rammed into his heart cavity, the poor bloke opposite shortly joins his pal in blissful death. Cue the opening credits credits.

Don Carpenter, unassuming and personality-less musician-about-town is our 'hero' although frankly, I imagine a common house-brick would have more personality than this 'actor'. He enjoys juice, beer, music and staring at women in bars. This is where we first see 'the girl' (this is how she's credited in the titles and so we never learn her real name - how original!!) she's pretty, slim and utterly insane. Now this is where Neighbour differs from most other female-torturess films, there is NO REASON for her desire to torture and kill people. She does it for the sheer fun of it, and I spent the entire film hoping someone would come and wipe the pretty smile off her over-acting face. Luckily for me, one of Don's friends Sam obliges with a bottle of acid (cue terrible 'pain' noises). Sadly this only turns out to be part of Don's hallucinations/agony induced passed out dreams (I've not figured this out, as I mentioned slightly confusing plot line).

Gore fans will be happy at the amount of fake blood and gory prosthetics used in the film, and kudos to the producers for not using crappy CGI, but I feel them to be a little fake looking. One scene shows our crazy killer pinning open Don's eyes, yet you can clearly see his lashes and a couple of sneaky blinks after her handy work. In another scene, our CK takes an everyday saw and saws open Don's girlfriends's mouth; Ichi the Killer style and yet in the very next shot we can clearly see the corners of her lips amidst the gore.

Between Don's underacting skills and 'the girls' penchant for rolling her eyes/head and obvious ADD issues (she couldn't even manage to feed her neighbour's cat without getting distracted). I'd say the casting person needs firing. Still you can't fault 'the girl's' ingenuity, she can sew her own clothes. make food (which she always wastes - no wonder she's so skinny) and has an amazing talent of finding people's fake knee caps; with a pizza cutter. Overall I'd give this film a 5/10, great if you like gory needless killing and if you're gullible enough to drink toxic-looking blue drinks from strangers then you'll love it.

Until next time, film fans.

Gemma Jones, photographer and movie addict.