DVD Review: NEIGHBOR

NEIGHBOR is a confusing and grotesque little horror film. While wallowing in terrible images of torture extreme violence, the dizzy array of dream sequences seems to complicate the plot to the point that the viewer loses track of what's real and what's just fantasy.

A strange new girl moves into town, and some guys at a bar find some interest in her. But one doesn't seem to get up the courage to ask her out. That's one storyline here. The other is that she enters the same guy's home and tortures and kills his friends as they arrive at his home using horrible and painful methods. Which is the real story here. I couldn't figure it out.

Robert Angelo Masciantonio's film might have aimed for some lofty heights here, but instead it landed hard on the ground as just another slasher horror experience. There is an unrated version with four more minutes of awful torture content if you want to bother to hunt it up, but the R rated version is more than awful enough to satisfy most gore fans.

It's hard to recommend this film. It's just not great by any means. America Olivo played a pretty sick character in the film, who seemed to enjoy her twisted role maybe a little too much. And cult figure Mink Stole makes a little appearance as well. But overall there's just not a lot of great original content to recommend here.

The Bottom Line: Not really awful, but just not great horror fun here. The makeup work is good. But the film is pretty unfulfilling. ++(Only two stars out of four)