The Evil Next Door is a useful reminder that foreign films are not inherently more interesting than domestic ones. Any longtime horror fan will recognize one tired trope after another in this film, right down to the setup and payoff of the “gotcha” scares. Directors Tord Danielsson and Oskar Mellander are competent enough for some creepy moments, except that after the high bar set by films like The Babadook and more recently His House, it is perplexing that this film opts for something so generic and deeply uninspired.
Shirin (Dilan Gwyn) is moving to a remote Swedish suburb with her boyfriend, Fredrik (Linus Wahlgren), and his young son Lucas (Eddie Eriksson Dominguez). Clearly the move is an attempt to rebuild the family after Lucas’ mother succumbed to cancer, and in the new house things are tense from the start. They live in a duplex, and the second unit looks abandoned, rundown and (you guessed it) haunted. The film’s middle section is a series of haunted house clichés: there are creepy sounds in the night and Lucas begins playing with a mysterious new “friend” that only he can see. Since Fredrik’s job keeps him away during the week, it is up to Shirin to get to the bottom of what is happening.
On top of the aforementioned tropes, all the characters are incredibly generic. They only speak in platitudes, and there is seemingly no attempt to riff on the same haunted house formula. Perhaps there is additional subtext because Gwyn has traditional Mediterranean features, while the other characters do not, and that means something to Swedish audiences. This will be lost to Americans, so what we have instead is a series of simple plot points, like Shirin’s transition from skeptic to believer.
Danielsson and Mellander shoot primarily in muted blues, a right fit for the material, and they mix up the scares a little. Sometimes you see a creature when Shirin does not, but mostly we see the ghouls from her point of view. There are long periods of quiet, and it is here when the filmmakers make a crucial mistake: it is not that scary to look down a quiet, dark hallway when you care little about the characters involved. All the performers convey the right emotions, but at nearly every turn, The Evil Next Door robs them of eccentricity and nuance.
To the film’s credit, there is some attempt to shoehorn broader themes into the final, cloying minutes. Any good haunted house movie is a metaphor for the psychology of its characters – the aforementioned His House is an excellent example of this – except The Evil Next Door does not earn that level of meaning. It is ultimately a film about building new families, which is markedly less interesting than, say, the ambiguities of motherhood or survival guilt. By the time Shirin screams into the ether about how much she loves Lucas, the moment is more odd than impactful. Where has the film demonstrated her love as genuine? Audience goodwill can only go so far, and this film lacks the ability to build to a climax that matters.
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