Author Stephen King’s cover blurb is displayed prominently
on the face of the DVD release of Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, and why not? Just as King’s endorsement gave an
early boost to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead,
so too does it help prop up this grim little indie bauble, inspired by actual
events. “Authentically shocking… a long look into hell, suburban-style, [this
film] will not disappoint,” reads the text on front, with King going on to call
the movie “the dark-side-of-the-moon version of Stand By Me.”

He’s not too terribly off, actually; it’s not King merely
stumping for one of his own, with contemporary Ketchum being one of the premier
horror writers of his day. This well-plotted tale of betrayal, violence and
terror unfolds in a quiet, picket-fence kind of town in the lazy, hazy summer
of 1958, and is all the more shocking because it actually happened. What so many slick studio horror films miss, in the mad dash
for their perfectly bruised and/or jolting imagery, is a sense of ominous,
accumulating dread. The Girl Next Door
nails that. The film’s performances anchor it in fine fashion, and it feels
real, in this case in all the worst senses of the word.

The story centers around recently orphaned sisters Meg
(Blythe Auffarth) and Susan Laughlin (Madeline Taylor), who are placed in the
care of their distant aunt Ruth (Emmy winner Blanche Baker). Susan is disabled,
and Ruth’s depraved sense of discipline — an illness that extends to her three
teenage sons as well as a group of their peers — manifests itself in
unreasonable demands and needling about Meg’s body and burgeoning sexuality. With
Ruth modeling sadism and supplying liquor to these impressionable kids, this behavior
soon gives way to even more unspeakable acts of abuse and torment — emotional manipulation, branding and even rape. In the end,
only 12-year-old neighbor David Moran (Daniel Manche) stands between the sisters and
what threatens to be their protracted and torturous deaths.

Housed in a regular plastic Amray case, The Girl Next Door is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen,
with Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and Dolby 2.0 surround audio tracks. The
digital transfer is a solid one, with only a few minor problems with edge
enhancement, fairly consistent and deep blacks, and minimal grain. Supplemental
extras consist of not one but two separate audio commentary tracks, the first
with director Gregory M. Wilson, producer Andrew van den Houten and
cinematographer-producer William Miller, and the latter with novelist Ketchum
and screenwriters Daniel Farrands and Philip Nutman. These are nice, and certainly the dual high points of the extra offerings. EPK-style interviews with
cast and crew provide plenty of opportunity for congratulatory reminiscence, and a behind-the-scenes making-of featurette offers up a perfunctory glimpse at the movie’s production. Rounding out things are a DVD-ROM copy of the movie’s script
and an original full-length trailer. B (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Based on murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh’s original
movie of the same name, Interview
stars Steve Buscemi — jauntily sporting a multi-hyphenate’s hat as adapter-director — as a
hard-bitten journalist forced to go head-to-head with a pretty starlet played
by Sienna Miller.

Before Van Gogh’s death in 2004, he had planned to remake
three of his films in English, and re-set them in New York
City. In the wake of his murder by an Islamic
extremist, his longtime producing partners, Gijs van de Westelaken and Bruce Weiss,
decided to honor Van Gogh’s memory by enlisting American directors to
collaborate on the films with members of Van Gogh’s original film crew. Buscemi
was the first to commit to the idea, and he chose to remake Interview, while also appearing on
camera.

The noted indie actor stars as pessimistic, world-weary journalist
Pierre Peders. Having made his name as a war reporter, traveling all over the
world and seeing some of the most horrifying sights imaginable, Pierre is understandably
irked at the occupational demotion that he feels he’s received with his
current assignment — a puff-piece profile on up-and-coming TV and movie actress
Katya (Miller, above). The odd-couple pair meet in a chic restaurant (she’s over
an hour late, naturally) and it’s an instant and decidedly spiteful collision
of worlds — Pierre’s serious political focus and Katya’s superficial world of
celebrity. But perhaps all is not as it appears. When Pierre
is slightly injured in a car accident inadvertently caused by Katya (she’s the
proverbial girl who stops traffic), they end up back at Katya’s spacious loft
for a long night of talking, drinking, sparring and strange, embattled intimacy.
Their contentious bickering and verbal chess game — spiked with wit, intrigue and
sexual tension — eventually evolves into a surprising confessional.

Notable films of reference here include Oleanna, for its battle-of-the-sexes sparks, and also the recent Sleuth, costarring Miller’s famous ex,
Jude Law. Interview has brevity on
its side (it clocks in at 83 minutes), and it’s true that sparks fly in
effective fashion, making the film quite watchable in an in-the-moment fashion, but the mix of drinks and philosophy wears a bit thin, and the ego-clash dance becomes a little too literal at one point. Still, Miller is mightily effective in something like this, playing off her off-screen tabloid reputation by toying with and twisting her hair in precious, entitled fashion when she’s late, and just generally vamping it up a bit. You find yourself mostly caught up in Katya‘s game, even if the movie’s final twist — without getting into specifics — doesn’t ring wholly true for the manner in which it assumes Katya wouldn’t take full credit for her ruse.

Interview comes
housed in a regular Amray plastic case, and presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic
widescreen, with an English language 5.1 Dolby digital soundtrack and optional
English and Spanish subtitles. Supplemental features on the DVD include six
minutes of behind-the-scenes material comprised chiefly of EPK-produced
interviews, as well as a 13-minute featurette that examines the work of
originating Dutch filmmaker Van Gogh; the latter reveals that the American
adaptation includes a plot twist born of a real-life taxi accident head bump
from one of the movie’s Dutch producers. There’s also a full-length director’s
commentary track from Buscemi, and it’s a pretty good chat, if also littered
with a few spoilers. He talks about the spontaneity of production (they blocked sections, but not specific marks) and his preference for a sparse score from Evan Lurie. Make sure you’ve already seen the film before you indulge
his remarks, though. B- (Movie) B (Disc)