The Neighbour Review

3 stars for this slightly disappointing horror.

The Neighbour is written and directed by Marcus Dunstan (Saw IV, V, VI, The Collector) and is set in the small and remote town of Cutter, Mississippi.

“Don’t measure your neighbour’s honesty…by your own.”

Johnny (Josh Stewart – Transcendence, The Dark Knight Rises) and Rosie (Alex Essoe – Tales of Halloween) have recently and somewhat reluctantly moved to their ranch in the small town of Cutter. They share a dream of running away to Mexico together, where no-one can find them.

To this end, they are working for Johnny’s Uncle Neil (Skipp Sudduth – The Hunted, Freeheld), a local meathead with his finger in a number of dubious pies and a bar as a front. He supplies them with endless fake registration plates and they use them to traffic drugs around the area. The whole thing is rather nasty and seedy and they can’t wait to get away.

Rosie has an unfortunate obsession with her telescope, which she uses to spy on their reclusive next door neighbour, Troy (Bill Engvall – Blue Collar TV, Bait Shop). He loves to shoot rabbits, and has a big steaming pit of their bodies in his garden. Nice. He did bring over some cold beers though and took quite a shine to Rosie.

The next day, Rosie spots him doing something he shouldn’t be and when Johnny returns home to find her gone, he heads off to Troy’s house to take a look around. What he finds is that Troy and his sons Cooper (Luke Edwards – Little Big League) and Harley (Ronnie Gene Blevins – Joe, Twin Peaks) are up to all kinds of no good.

The Neighbour is disappointing for a number of reasons. The characters are all as bad as each other, making it very difficult to care what happens to any of them. There is also very little in the way of suspense, no jump scares and the horror isn’t really particularly horrifying.

It’s not a bad film necessarily, the acting is fine and the script is okay, but I would have preferred their neighbour to be up to something far more nefarious and interesting than he actually was. A great idea that could have been done better.

“We don’t get too many women as looking as you around these parts…”

The Neighbour is available to buy now on DVD.