Vampire Owl: This title is the best for a romantic comedy movie.

Vampire Bat: Do you intend to fall in love with your neighbour?

Vampire Owl: I had that plan a long time ago, and then I got many centuries old.

Vampire Bat: Yes, there are no real neighbours when you get immortal.

Vampire Owl: And it is so difficult to love your neighbour.

Vampire Bat: I am sure that this movie is talking about fearing your neighbour.

Vampire Owl: At some stage, fear also gets its own love.

Vampire Bat: You remember The Girl Next Door? There are movies released in 2004 and 2007 with the same name, and one is a romantic comedy flick and the other is a horror movie.

Vampire Owl: And The Boy Next Door is a thriller.

Vampire Bat: And could have been a romantic comedy too!

[Gets three cups of masala tea with wheat porotta and kadai paneer].

What is the movie about? :: John (Josh Stewart) and Rosie (Alex Essoe) are a couple who are planning to escape their way of living which includes illegal activities, after they have enough enough money in their hands. The two lives in a town which has people who doesn’t know even their immediate neighbours. Neil (Skipp Sudduth) who is a criminal and John’s only relative in the area, is not ready to let him leave from his gang that easily though. They are a happy couple who compliment each other, but Rosie has the habit of looking into the life of their neighbour who is actually a man who wishes to keep everything to himself. It is more like the one thing that she does each and every day without failing. This neighbour, Troy (Bill Engvall) is not someone who wishes to be spied upon, and notices his neighbour’s interest in him too.

So, what happens next? :: One day, when John returns home, he doesn’t find Rosie there. He checks all around home as well as the surrounding places, but finds no clue as to where she has disappeared. Then he turns to his neighbour’s home which his has always been a mystery to everyone and had fascinated Rosie. Soon, he realises that his criminal lifestyle is not that much of a secret compared to his neighbour’s strange world. What he will discover there shall not only turn the neighbours against each other, but also makes sure that John and Rosie are not the only two people who will running for their lives. The secret that Troy keeps in his building is more than just something illegal – it is alive, and there are lots of other people involved in the same. So the question remains if the two can stay alive after threatening the privacy of the man who might not be who they think he is.

The defence of The Neighbour :: The strength of The Neighbour is its collection of twists, and even though none of them are huge, comes one after the other to bring enough of the effect. The setting is also very nice, and the sequences are nicely shot to bring the creepy effect to us. There are also some nice sequences of action, even though horror and thrills get the best here. The Neighbour is also not a movie which is too far away from our lives. It reminds us of a world in which we don’t know much about our neighbors, quite a common thing in those bigger cities. With such a situation around, The Neighbour which is about “the guy next door” brings some nice effect with its creepiness. You are surely going to enjoy this, in one way or the other, as once it starts going, there is no stopping it. We are transported into that environment and we are there, looking for a way out for the protagonists.

The claws of flaw :: There will be similarities to the director’s earlier movies, The Collector and The Collection, both with antagonists having secrets of their own. Going through that usual style, The Neighbour might feel a little predictable at times, even with those twists ready to pounce on us. The feeling that there has been too many of movies like this will also be there, and so many people will be wishing to have had this differently. You remember that Don’t Breathe also had an older person in control of his house, but it was quicker in pace just like You’re Next, and doesn’t spend much time in getting into action, and it also had a bigger creepy feeling. Even The Collector and The Collection are gorier and even has an antagonist who is more mysterious – there were also those traps, and the feeling that there was no escape – The Neighbour is just a little behind in the same, but is surely not lost.

Performers of the soul :: Even as he has played Holt McLaren in the TV series Dirt Detective William LaMontagne, Jr. in Criminal Minds, Josh Stewart should be better known for playing Bane’s right-hand man Barsad in The Dark Knight Rises, and for playing the blind man who gets healed in Transcendence. The horror movie fans would surely identify him from the same director’s The Collector and The Collection, and he is also going to be a part of the upcoming horror lick, Insidious: Chapter 4. He seems to be very well suited for this kind of a setting, as he proves again. Alex Essoe has all that is required to make the right scream queen. Bill Engvall makes a fine villain too, and he is in control throughout the movie. We can actually feel that he is going to make it great, right at the first moment when he is at the home of the protagonist. The other actors also follow the standard path well.

How it finishes :: The Neighbour, also spelled as The Neighbor, is the third movie directed by Marcus Dunstan who has already come up with the movies like The Collector and its sequel, The Collection – the former was supposed to be a prequel to Saw earlier, but came up as a new movie, and they were two interesting movies too, with first one being the superior film. The same director had also written screenplays for a number of Saw movies. The two earlier movies from him also had a similar world in store, with secrets unfolding inside a building. The Neighbour is not that much different either, with terror waiting to come to scene. Even with that feeling that we have seen this before, The Neighbour also becomes another movie which can be added to that list of interesting flicks featuring twisted evil just waiting to pounce.

Release date: 6th September 2016
Running time: 87 minutes
Directed by: Marcus Dunstan
Starring: Josh Stewart, Alex Essoe, Melissa Bolona, Bill Engvall, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Luke Edwards, Skipp Sudduth, Mason Guccione, David Kallaway, Heather Williams, Jaqueline Fleming, Chaka Desilva, Ben Matheny, Artrial Clark, Jered Meeks, Brett Forbes, Phillip Rush

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.