Ketchum's The Girl Next Door

[BH14]

I just finished watching this movie and I found it to be extremely disturbing but in a good way. It is definitely one of the most shocking films that I have ever seen and being based on a true story makes it more sicker. I felt dirty just watching it. There is a lot of torture in this film! Torture films like Hostel really don't do anything for me but this movie breaks your heart for Meg. Is there too much torture scenes? I think so but it is nothing compared to the real life story of Syliva Likens. Maybe improve the plot? It is too unimaginable that people can do something like that and you will never hate anyone more than the "villian" in TGND. While I did like the movie, I don't think that I am able to watch it again because it is way too depressing! There is another adaptation called "An American Crime" coming out Feb. 5, 2008 on dvd with the actress Ellen Page (from Juno) and Catherine Keener. I will definitely be checking that movie out! I think that version will actually be better than Ketchum's by checking out some reviews.

Here is the real story... but the actual names are different.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/young/likens/1.html

[siorai]

Personally I wasn't too terribly impressed with this film. Sure it's disturbing as all hell what gets done to Meg just because well.. she happens to be there. But overall, I couldn't bring myself to actually care about any of the characters. The acting just did nothing for me. It seemed like they all had cue cards just off-camera. I guess if I was able to care about anyone in the film it would have made a huge difference, but I just couldn't. Sure I felt bad for what was happening to Meg as a character, but she was just an actor in a movie. Nothing more. A key to a movie like this is that the viewer has to become entirely sympathetic to the character's plight. That's where the horror of a movie like this stems from. I felt nothing of that unfortunately. The pacing was also fairly horrible. I had to fight to stay awake and stop myself from just turning it off to find something interesting to do. The premise is perfect for a horror movie, but I just thought it could have been executed so much better.