A Killer Next Door

Wow.. I honestly have no idea how I sat through this. It's one of the worst movies I've seen this year.

It's a shame, because it's based on a true story which I've heard about prior to watching this on the My Favourite Murder podcast. The true story is super creepy, and interesting, but this film was the complete opposite.

The acting, script, music.. ugh. It's all so bad! All very low budget, and don't get me wrong there can be some decent low budget films, but this is not one of them.

The best thing about this film is honestly the movie poster, because that actually looks decent.

I wanted to like this movie. I really did, but I couldn't sit through to the end.

Acting by so many was (in my opinion) sub-par. More importantly, this was supposed to be set in the US, yet the obvious signs it was not were seen by the European license plates on cars and obvious non-US electrical outlets. The Royal Mail carrier didn't lend any US authenticity either.

It's the small details that were overlooked that took away from any credibility this film might have had.

The outside shots of the List Westfield NJ home weren't even CLOSE to the home where the crimes had occurred. Granted, that home has since burned and subsequently was demolished, but surely the director could have found a home more closely resembling the List home, than the Newark NJ style row house he used instead.

I can only hope the producers get ANY return on their investment in this film.

I love serial killer movies. This was not that. At best, a weak plagiarized Rear Window(down to the injured protagonist.) At least Disturbia updated the "stuck at the window" premise. Reasons not to watch:

• Terrible acting,
• Ridiculous dialogue,
• Awful camera work (with weird zooms, shaky at times, out of focus at times,)
• Exposition narration in the form of dialogue (where a person would come onscreen to say a few sentences, then the movie would movie would go on to another scene, with no acknowledgment of who the person was talking to,)
• Bad sets and costume design,
• Terrible facial expressions,
• Weak score/soundtrack,
• Entirely unlikable, dumb characters,
• Zero tension or mystery.

I could go on and on. Anything going on in this movie is extremely bad. I will never watch it again, and I recommend that you not either. If this is playing at a friend's house, go for a walk. Fresh air is better than this atrocity.

The last time I saw acting this bad was in 1971 while watching the now cult classic, BILLY JACK. Ironically, this crime by John List also took place in 1971. Was this film directed in such a manner to pay homage to this era?

I actually watched the entire movie, not sure why. It was slow-moving, bad acting, and really not that interesting. The Stepfather, which is based on the same killer, is much better. The only thing that saved this movie was the music at the end while the credits rolled by.