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★★
Written and Directed by: #NickGatsby
Starring: #EricWillis and #ScottMitchell
Film review by: Brian Penn
The neighbour from hell is something we all dread; our sanctuary and bolthole invaded by people from whom we have no escape. This self-explanatory effort from Nick Gatsby takes a minor annoyance to the extreme in a scenario that rightly belongs in a nightmare.
The tenant (Eric Willis) is seemingly the innocent victim of a vendetta pursued by his neighbour (Scott Mitchell). With no spoken dialogue to support the narrative, we are left with shaky visuals and captioned speech on screen. A rough and basic edit is underpinned by an odd affection for silent movies. The jaunty piano interludes set against absent dialogue are reminiscent of the pre-talkie era. What we hear is largely static or white noise; while the visuals are deeply uncomfortable and difficult to digest (this is definitely not a film for migraine suffers or the photosensitive).
The storyline is largely non-existent beyond what is contained in the film’s title. There is no effort to explain the neighbour's motivation or even hint at the characters’ back story. However, the captions make abundantly clear how the neighbour wants to damage the tenant. An incoherent piece bills itself as horror, but frankly it’s difficult to see why. It just doesn’t register and fails to project fear and tension, only bemusement.
It feels like an idea dreamed up on the back of a beer mat during a liquid lunch. Obviously short on funding, they also grabbed a VHS video camera to shoot the film; which produced ever present black lines riding through every frame. This began to grate on the senses after a few minutes. That may well have been the desired effect but was just distracting and annoying. Films of this type will always garner a fan base, but is far too self-indulgent to gain any real credibility.
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