A newlywed couple move into a new house and the feminine half (AJ Cook) of said couple believes that their is something askew with their new neighbors. Playing out like any given made-for Lifetime-esquire movie, the film has all the stereotypes and clichés of type of film. Battered woman? check, all the men all either evil or complacent in said evil? double check. And as such is a predictably boring mess. I didn't care about anything that happened in the film including the so-called 'hero' who came off as a daft silly little cooze. the crazy (the actress, not the stuck-up part she played in this film) Sean Young did nothing to add that much into the movie.My Grade: D-

This could have been turned into a better than average garden variety thriller with a different ending. In fact, I suspect the original script may have been written that way. Certainly the opening scene which found the new bride hovering between dream and reality -- and perhaps a bid daft -- was an excellent set-up for an ending in which after the terrified woman calls the cops, having made one of the more macabre discoveries of terror spoofs, the knock on the door reveals the police officer, suspensefully followed by the unbloodied "victims" who stagger over from the party next door to console the poor woman, victim of an over-stressed imagination or really off her rocker. Too bad about the ex-marine who only wanted to do what randy marines like to do to available women, but the life of a fighting man is fraught with hazard.I thought the shovel banging on a wooden box was a real blunder. Whether dead dog or murder victim, no killer would put the body in a box to bury it.

The young couple Lori Peterson (A.J. Cook) and her husband Tom Peterson (Matthew Harrison) moves from Chicago to a suburb, to live in a huge house. Their neighbors Helen Schmidt (Theresa Russell) and Carl Schmidt (James Russo) welcome them with a dinner party at their house and the two couples start a good relationship. When Tom travels to Los Angeles on business, Lori stays alone at home and realizes that Carl is a violent man and might have killed his wife. She decides to investigate what might have happened to Helen. 'The House Next Door' is a totally predictable festival of clichés. It seems that the studios have some sort of previously prepared combination of screenplays with this sort of flick, and releases them with a minor participation of some known actors and actresses, like Sean Young and Theresa Russell, a beautiful cover and posters to the video rentals to attract the attention of viewers. Later, they release it to an open or even cable TV channel, and nothing else. Just as an example, this type of movie is very common and typical in the Saturday 9:00 PM session of TV Globo (the greatest open channel in Brazil). 'The House Next Door' is a watchable and very forgettable flick. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): 'Vizinhos Lado a Lado Até a Morte' ('Neighbors Side by Side Until Death')

This conventional woman-in-jeopardy suspencer, screened at the American Film Market in February, has enough predictable situations to place it in the lightweight horror category.A young Chicago couple, married two years, move into their country dream home only to discover their neighbors are not all they appear to be. The young wife (A.J.Cook) is left vulnerable when husband (Matthew Harrison) has to spend two weeks in LA on business. James Russo provides so-so excitement as the heavy-next-door.While Joey Travolta directs competently, we don't get to know enough about the characters to make us care very much what happens to them in the situations they are placed.