The Boy Next Door (2015)

Please don't spend money on this.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I wouldn't consider the Jennifer Lopez character in this movie to be flawed, just more or less vulnerable. The younger guy who moved in next door to her was charming enough at first, but he became progressively and unbelievably twisted as the film moved along.I need to note here that Jennifer is way too beautiful for the "age difference" to even be noticeable. Besides, the connection was clear between the two leads. In fact, everyone gelled well together to make this cautionary tale work on the big screen.This movie should serve two lessons: people aren't always who they appear to be...and everyone makes mistakes.

THE BOY NEXT DOOR is a very predictable example of the psycho-thriller genre with worse and more generic scripting than something like DISTURBIA. It suffers hugely from having Jennifer Lopez as the miscast lead, because she fails to invest her character with any particular personality or wit, and she's entirely unsympathetic to boot. There were only two scenes in the whole film I liked, and the blind date is one of them, but the rest is just ho-hum. As the story's antagonist, Ryan Guzman is laughably out of his depth and entirely unimposing, as well as qualifying for one of the oldest supposed teenagers I've ever seen. The story plays out slowly and predictability, nothing that hasn't been done before, and only picking up in the last ten minutes for a cliched but amusingly violent showdown.

"And here's to you Mrs. Peterson. Jesus loves you more than you know." This movie is a twisted version of "The Graduate" (1967), although not only has Mrs. Robinson become Mrs. Peterson, but in this movie it is the teacher being seduced. Noah Sandborn (Ryan Guzman) moves next door to Claire Peterson (Jennifer Lopez), a teacher of Classical English Literature at the high school Noah will be attending. Claire is on rocky terms with her husband as the two struggle to be civil for the sake of their son Kevin (Ian Nelson). Noah is orphaned, and has moved in to help his elderly uncle who is going for an operation and Noah intends to provide help as he recovers. Noah quickly befriends the Petersons, and one night, while home alone, he calls upon Mrs. Peterson to come to his rescue on a failed attempt to make a chicken dinner. She goes over, and Noah seduces her, and in the vulnerable state she is in, she succumbs. The next morning, when Mrs. Peterson tries to say what a mistake had been made, we see Noah has become obsessed and now has this incident to use as blackmail. Part of the problem with this movie is there is not enough character development. It would've been better if it toyed with your emotions, making you first really like Noah before he becomes evil; but the movie gives you a creepy feeling about Noah right from the beginning, in his action, in his dialogue, and even in the music they play right from the opening credits. Overall the whole plot is pretty far-fetched. Not a great work of art, but bottom line the movie does make you wonder how it's going to end. Unfortunately not even the ending is that exciting.

Totally a formula movie. We have seen the plot a dozen times with a mentally deranged person who is obsessed with another person, works their way into the life of that person and becomes dangerously deranged. Similar plot to films like Fatal Attraction, The Babysitter, The Stepfather and dozens of other films on the Lifetime Network. What really amazes me is that well known stars will actually accept rolls in films like this. Do they need the money that badly? Maybe with American Idol ending, Jennifer Lopez felt she would need a little cash to hold her over to the next gig. Bad acting, bad writing, bad character development, bad plot. The best part was the end and the worst part was that it did not come soon enough.