Others, including myself, feel a deep queasiness about the film’s existence. Despite the "message," the camera lingers. It exploits the very suffering it claims to condemn. Because we are watching a fictionalized version of a real girl’s death, are we not also complicit in the voyeurism that the film critiques? I cannot say I "enjoyed" The Girl Next Door (2007). I can barely say I "appreciated" it. But I cannot deny that it has stuck with me for fifteen years.
Unlike The Strangers or The Conjuring , which use the "based on a true story" tagline loosely, The Girl Next Door is shackled to the grim reality of Sylvia Likens. Knowing that a real teenager was locked in a basement, branded with hot needles, and eventually killed while her neighbors heard her screams makes the film almost impossible to dismiss as "just a movie." It forces us to confront the capacity for cruelty that exists in the quietest streets of America. The Critical Divide: Art or Exploitation? This is where the conversation gets difficult. Is The Girl Next Door a necessary piece of art that exposes the darkness of human nature, or is it just torture porn with a pretentious gloss? the.girl.next.door.2007
If you choose to watch it—and I strongly suggest you read the Wikipedia summary of the Sylvia Likens case first—go in knowing that there is no happy ending. There is no justice in the runtime. The only justice is the fact that this story finally forced society to look at what happened in that house in Indianapolis. Others, including myself, feel a deep queasiness about