Welcome to the Booze and Other Nonsense film review section. I am your host, Trevor.

What I hope we get out of this are some laughs, memories, and a definitive rating of each film I watch.

A few groundrules:

I will review good movies as well as bad movies. I have no formal training in comedy. Never feed him after midnight. I will discuss spoilers.

Well, without further hesitation, let’s get to our feature film…The Boy Next Door

The first thing I notice is that this is made by Blumhouse Productions. Remember these people? They also made the Paranormal Activity money grab, the Insidiouses, the Purges, and… Whiplash (and others).

I first remember hearing about this movie because of the “first edition Illiad” that the boy next door gifts Jennifer Lopez’s character. Since then, I’ve always wanted to see it. A movie with writing that bad has to be defective in other area’s right? Yes. That assumption is correct.

The story starts off with Claire (Jennifer Lopez) trying to make things work with her husband Garrett (John Corbett), after he cheated on her 9 months prior. They have separated, but he is over from time to time. He is trying to buy his son Kevin’s affection with gifts, such as a (my guess is) decent desktop computer setup. The gift every teenager wants!

The boy next door, Noah (Ryan Guzman), introduces himself by saving Claire from being crushed by her garage door. Noah is supposed to be a high schooler, yet he looks like he is in his mid 20s. Oh! That’s because Ryan Guzman was 27 during the making of this movie. The moral of the story is, don’t hang out with people who look 10 years older than they pretend to be. He also has an uncanny understanding of garage door engineering for a high schooler….hm…Must be irrelevant right? (his character is actually 20 years old)

Noah and Kevin go to an ace hardware like store, and get some tools to fix the garage door. Kevin is awkward around hot girls at his high school, but Noah (being 20), is totally fine around teenage girls. She is totally into Noah. Also Noah is going to high school still. He should just become a handy man, but hey, that’s just my opinion.

Some asshole kids come in and start picking on Kevin. We are supposed to believe that high schoolers mock people for having an EpiPen? Do teens do that now? That is just mean, and I won’t tolerate it! Meanwhile Noah looks suspicious. Must be nothing…

Fortunately, Kevin and Garrett take the vacation which they established in the first scene, and now we get a lot of alone time with Noah and Claire. And yes, he gives her a first edition copy of the Illiad which he got at a garage sale. I am calling BS on that. And its only 15 minutes into this film….

As a storm roles in, Claire tries out some 7 inch heels that she was given by her friend. She stares out the window and notices that she can see into Noah’s room, as he is undressing and staring at himself in the mirror. I think Noah’s flirting has been working.

This movie takes a hard turn to stir up a debate about the utility of education in the arts vs STEM. Meanwhile Claire notices, as does the audience, that everyone who is an adult is BORING. She wants to go back and spend more time with the Boy Next Door. You go Claire. Fortunately, Noah doesn’t know how to cook food and invites her over to cook for him.

She has had a bit of wine to drink and tells him no when he advances on her. She continuously says no as he undresses her. That doesn’t stop him, so they have sex. This is rape…right? She regretted it the next morning (and for the rest of her life). Noah punches a wall because he is mad. This is some saucy conflict! His hand, that was pretty badly cut and bleeding that morning, is completely fine a few hours later.

Well school starts, and Noah walks into Claire’s classroom quoting Achilles because…why the hell not? Then Noah takes Kevin into the woods to shoot oranges with gun because…why the hell not? Then Noah gets Kevin into boxing because… This seems to be a theme of the movie.

Well Claire and Garrett are mending their relationship, which angers The Boy Next Door. Noah declares “Game On!” at Claire as he goes to school, and breaks the skull of a bully who is harassing Kevin. Noah wants to be Kevin’s father, I think. This movie is only getting more intense. Noah calls the vice principal a “Dried up fucking cunt”, and he is expelled. This expulsion does not stop him from coming to the fall fling dance and trying to rape Claire again!

Someone, probably Noah but I have no proof of this, left the printer in Claire’s classroom. There were pictures all throughout the room of them having sex, and Claire magically cleans this up in 5 minutes before the door opens. Meanwhile Garrett is letting his son Kevin drive the new car, and things get out of control. The clutch and brake stops working! Nobody dies, but everything is getting exciting!

Claire breaks into Noah’s house, hacks into his computer, and deletes the video and pictures of her. She also notices that the basement is a shrine dedicated to her, and that Noah has schematics for the brakes for a Dodge Challenger and a 2006 minivan. Its important to now note that Noah’s father was killed because his brakes failed. I can’t say anything to make this more ridiculous, this is ridiculous enough. His mother killed herself, and that is why Noah moved next door to Claire.

Noah ties up the vice principal, who is Claire’s friend, and convinces Claire to come to the house. The vice principal has a cat, we know this because….

Claire finds the vice principal dead in the bathroom. We don’t get to see her die. Of all the crazy things this movie shows us, we don’t see her death.

Time for things to go off the rails…It hasn’t yet, trust me.

Noah kidnaps both Garrett and Kevin and tie them up in the barn on the property of the vice principal. This barn was established in the beginning of the movie. A fight ensues between Claire and Noah, Noah believes if Kevin and Garrett are dead then Claire will have no reason to continue living in her old life.

Noah decides to build a funeral pyre by splashing gasoline around the barn and lighting it on fire. Noah whips out the gun from earlier in the movie and shoots Garrett in the chest. Claire stabs Noah in the eye with an EpiPen. Yes, really!

Time for Kevin to do something! He joins the fight by hitting Noah with a rake. It was not very effective. Fortunately there is an engine chained inside of the barn. Claire pulls the lever and drops it onto Noah, killing him. Garrett somehow survives. They leave in an ambulance. Roll credits.

True Love Conquers All!

Overall this movie is bad. The dialogue is dreadful, the editing is poorly done, the plot is completely insane. But, at the same time, I liked it. Every scene had something going on which kept this train moving, and they established everything in the film. Few things came out of nowhere, well, apart from the ending. The ending was rushed, but hey, when you have a final scene that takes place in a burning barn, someone gets shot, someone gets stabbed in the eye, and someone gets killed via car engine, you can rush it.

33/100. I would recommend this if you are looking to have a good time making fun of a bad movie. Its not scary. Its only mildly funny. On the bright side, it is Noah who is sexualized more than Claire.

Weird notes…

When Jennifer Lopez’s son has cake frosting on his hand, she says “Look at you, you’ve got schmutz everywhere”. Is this the establishment that her character is German? Or speaks Yiddish?

When the uncle first meets Claire he explains that Noah lost his parents a year ago. They odd thing is how this was shot and edited. He is in a motorized wheelchair, and comes towards the camera as he explains. He stops moving and takes his hand off the control, cut to Claire. Next he is back where he was, scooting closer as he continues to speak. Poorly done.

Noah having sex with Kevin’s crush while Claire watches is not even in the top 5 most ridiculous things in this movie.

The uncle, who is in an automatic wheelchair in the beginning of the film, is perfectly fine to walk around and give everyone a fake scare near the end of the movie.

Next up: Mad Max: Fury Road.