The Boy Next Door (2015) – A Review

This movie is too funny!

Jennifer Lopez is an English teacher and mother who’s estranged from her husband. Ryan Guzman moves in next door and then against her better judgement she has a roll in the hay with the kid.

She realizes what a mistake it was, especially when he goes all Fatal Attraction on her. He harasses her at home, at work, threatens her ex, manipulates her son and gets downright violent. How is Jenny From The Block going to stop this nutty kid.

This is such a clichéd, lousy, laughable movie. When it was meant to make me bite my nails with suspense, I was rolling my eyes giggling at this flick. There are no surprises. It’s predictable right down the line. This was promoted as an ‘erotic thriller’. It should have been billed as a ‘laughably bad erotic thriller’. Bring the family folks! This has more laughs than that Ghostbusters remake!

I guess this was some kind of vanity project for Lopez. Or at least the film uses her casting as the big selling point. That was a wise decision since there’s absolutely nothing else worthwhile to sit and watch in this.

Fortunately for Lopez, she didn’t seem to be exert too much energy into this flick. It’s like she’s sleepwalking through this entire movie very disinterested in anything going on. But she’s not alone, everyone gives a bad performance.

Lopez is badly miscast as an English teacher. I don’t buy that this kid would make her swoon by quoting the Iliad. I can’t imagine there is any trace of rational thinking at all in this lady when one phone call to the police would solve her adolescent stalking problem, but she doesn’t do it. They state the kid’s not underage, so call the fuzz and that could put an end to this craziness.

Nah, she wants to protect her job so she just endures more of his silly crap and gets increasingly worried about her and everyone around hers safety. Maybe she likes the harassment.

In fact, I think in the universe this movie takes place in the police only show up when dead bodies appear. They arrive right before the closing credits to tie a nice bow on this ludicrous story, but if you’re not reporting a corpse your not allowed to bother them. “What, he almost killed a student? Well, give him detention or something! We’re too busy to be called for ‘almost kill’ incidents!”

Lopez’s son is the most gullible teen in the school district willing to buy anything his new pal says and just goes along with Guzman’s advice to be a pain in the ass to his dad. Guzman shows off his muscles and acts off the charts insane really quickly. He tries to act threatening, but he doesn’t quite pull it off, no matter what nutty stuff he says and does. So, he goes about doing formulaic uninspired stalking antics hanging up pictures of him and Lopez shagging and writing graffiti on walls.

There’s really not much of a gradual progression of the tension and concern Lopez should be feeling. Guzman pretty much acts off his nut the very next morning after their sex session.

They come up with feeble reasons for her lack of actions, but it’s quite difficult to go along with why she keeps entertaining this nonsense and just doesn’t put an end to it with that one phone call. It’s hard to accept she’s an educated, level-headed woman.

By the time Guzman has got her family chained up in a burning barn I was laughing at the absurdity of it all.

Yep, really bad movie. It might be good for some unintentional laughs. There are bits of dialogue and line readings that will make you snicker. And you get to see that Lopez is still looking sexy. She does look good.

And before you ask – no she does not get naked in this, so don’t go hoping for that to provide any kind of redemption in this flick. If you’re genuinely in the mood for a decent thriller skip this and go watch one of the more effective erotic thrillers that this one tried to be.