Films are made for a variety of different reasons but the best that cinema has to offer will invariably provoke an emotional response; and Gregory Wilson's film version of Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door is one of the best examples of a film to do that; and the emotional response that the film provoked in me was anger. The director forces his audience to watch a series of vile atrocities committed towards an innocent and undeserving party. The film made me want to reach into the screen and do something about it, and the fact that I couldn't makes this film one of the most gut-wrenching and unbearable movie watching experiences of my long movie watching 'career'. Mainstream Hollywood tends to specialise in searing emotional dramas designed to make its audience shed tears - but the fact that everything here is presented completely raw means that the audience is left to make their own minds up; which has apparently left some viewers unaffected - but it was what ultimately made the film so powerful for me.<br /><br />The film takes place in the fifties and we focus on David Moran; a young boy who meets a young girl named Meg Loughlin when she moves in next door with her sister after the death of their parents. Her presence incites the matriarch of the household; who takes it upon herself to use her sons (along with some other neighbourhood children) to torture and abuse Meg, while the case goes unreported. The first third of the movie is not too far removed from being a drama about a group of children in the summertime; but as the film moves on, things start to get dark pretty quickly and by then the film grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the credits role. The violence shown in the movie is not particularly explicit; and that's possibly why the film didn't get a rousing reception from some circles who were hoping for an exploitation flick. What we do see is more than enough, however, and it's the situation that really makes the film what it is. The acting is brilliant also; with the monstrous Blanche Baker heading up a cast of youngsters. Every film is looked at in different ways by different people; but I honestly am surprised that some people who saw this film were not affected by it. The Girl Next Door is surely one of the most unforgettable and painful films I've ever seen and for that reason I would give it a cautionary recommendation. It's well worth seeing...but you've been warned.