The Girl Next Door

The Girl Next Door

Starring Daniel Manche, Blythe Auffarth, Blanche Baker, Madeline Taylor

Directed by Gregory Wilson

The Story:
In 1958, young David (Daniel Manche) lives next door to Ruth Chandler (Blanche Baker) and her children and they're good friends, despite Ruth's odd parental behavior - letting her children drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and openly talk about sex in front of them.  Then young girls Meg (Blythe Auffarth) and her sister Susan (Madeline Taylor - who suffers from a muscular disease- move in with Ruth after their parents' death.

Ruth begins treating the girls - especially Meg - with great distaste and hatred.  She begins punishing Meg for things Susan does by accident, and punishes her after she slaps her son for inappropriately touching her.  When she goes to the police, Ruth chains Meg in the basement and subject her to the most brutal, unimaginable tortures imaginable, while David looks on helplessly.  Ultimately the beatings and tortures become nearly impossible to bear, and David has to find a way to save himself, Meg, and Susan before they all die.

The Synopsis:
"The Girl Next Door" is a fictionalized novel by Jack Ketchum based on the all-too-real story of Sylvia Likens.  In 1965 Indiana, Sylvia and her sister Jenny were sent to live with Gertrude Baniszewski after they go off to work at the carnival, and Gertrude turns her anger on Sylvia.  She tortures, beats and subjects the young girl to all kinds of tortures at the hands of not just herself, but her children and other neighborhood children as well.  Ultimately the beatings become too much and Sylvia dies from her wounds, and Gertrude, her children, and the neighborhood children are tried and convicted of the murder, which, as a prosecutor said during the trial, was "the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana."

As far as the film itself goes, it's incredibly dark, unnerving and not for the faint of heart.  Director Gregory Wilson does a great job setting up the picture-perfect Americana of the 1950s at the beginning - kids running around outside playing, catching fish, having picnics, playing in the woods and eating ice cream.  It's "Stand By Me" and life is wonderful and filled with promise.  However, not long after, we witness the seedy, unwholesome underbelly of the classic suburbia motif as we're introduced to Ruth Chandler and her children.  Ruth - brilliantly portrayed by Blanche Baker - has some severe issues in her past that flood to the present, as she allows her children to do pretty much anything they want, and she treats girls with disdain and rage, probably due to her own string of lovers who loved and left her. 

She takes out most of her aggression on innocent, young Meg - also portrayed to perfection by relative newcomer Blythe Auffarth.  She is angelic in pretty much every way: she cares for her ailing sister, she's relatively unexposed to the darkness of the world, and she has a genuinely caring heart.  Which makes everything that happens to her all the more gruesome and nearly unwatchable.  There were times during the film where you think it's just a movie, but then you remember it's based on a real-life event that was labeled as the worst crime in Indiana, and it resonates within your soul and keeps a hold on you long after it ends. 

What makes the film all the more gripping is the cast.  There's no big names, no one you'd really recognize.  There was another movie released based on the Likens murder called "An American Crime" starring Ellen Page and Catherine Keener, and because the film had such big name stars it didn't have as big an impact as "The Girl Next Door" did, because this cast was unknown, and filmed in a way where you feel like you're there with them, and you want to jump through the screen and stop the terror you're seeing but you're unable to do it.  It's truly a harrowing, heart-breaking piece of work.

The Summary:
Blending an unknown cast with a true life horror story, "The Girl Next Door" hits on every cylinder and leaves you profoundly impacted after seeing it, knowing that there really is true evil in the world.

The Score: A