Review of The House Next Door

The film starts off as quite promising with a newlywed couple, Lori and Tom, just moved into a new house in a small town, far away from their home in Chicago. An unfriendly barking dog is the first neighbour that they meet. It's as though that scene was foreshadowing of what's to come later. The couple end up invited for dinner at their new neighbours' house. Although the story here is introducing the characters at the early stage, already we know that their neighbour Carl is off. He allows his child to play with guns and Carl shows Tom his room full of weapons and medals. For some reason, probably script laziness, the newlyweds are broken apart when hubby's job forces him to leave for a while, and his wife Lori has to spend time alone. First of all that was a real bomb, as it was an excuse for the writers to get Tom out of the story most of the film. Why bother with this character at all? Why not have Lori as moving in on her own as a single woman? There wasn't any purpose to Tom at all other than he came across as a bit of a moron and unintelligent. He never saved Lori or attempted to help her. He acted like a goon that was easily influenced by his nice neighbour Mr Carl. When Lori told her husband that Carl sneaked in her room as she slept, Tom stormed over to the neighbour's house and ended up sharing a beer with Carl and his best mate. That was the most dumbest moments in film by having husband change so quickly and get under the Carl Spell just like the whole community itself was. According to that party, the entire town was under a form of hypnotic trance by Carl, looking up to him as a king, sort of. However, Lori is the only person who can see through him because she's witnessed Carl's wife get abused by him. Lori found that Carl is up to something and is the most evil man in town. Frustratingly no one believed her. The next annoying thing was Lori's friend Monica. It's as if there is a standard formula because every female BFF of the female main protogonist in American films, always has to be like Marge Simpson. The most mindless thing that happened, and most unrealistic thing anyone would do under the circumstances, would be for Monica to go snooping in Carl's back yard. It was a fatal error. It was the most daft thing that could happen. Because of all these silly mistakes and bad storyline, I give this a thumbs down low score.