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Modern horror films and their accompanying textual analyses tend to fall into two distinct camps according to mainstream trends. The first is the more psychological slow-burning suspense of the ghost story most popularly witnessed in the earlier works of M. Night Shyamalan such as the ‘Sixth Sense’ (1999), the hyper realism of the ‘Blair Witch Project’ (dir. Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez, 1999), or the tide of Japanese horror films such as ‘The Ring’ (dir. Hideo Nakata, 1998) and the resulting tide of rip-offs and remakes which is only now thankfully ending. The second is the still popular and highly topical ‘torture porn’ genre named because of its almost fetishistic focus on relentless acts of physical human cruelty such as the seemingly never-ending ‘Saw’ series or Eli Roth’s two ‘Hostel’ movies. Aside from the Japanese examples it is no surprise that all the above examples come from the USA. With the dominant early Hollywood system cementing the idea of the genre picture so definitively it makes sense that the same country still leads the way in terms of base-level genres such as horror. Perhaps then it’s the cultural and geographical location of its conception that makes the Norwegian film ‘Next Door (Naboer)’ (2005) such a welcome and fresh take on over-used stylistic and narrative tropes, even as it does draw initially from both styles of American film (perhaps unintentionally). While its prevailing themes are based in the psychological realm and the majority of its shocks wrought from impressively slow build-ups of tension ‘Next Door’ also features scenes of extreme brutality that would shock many an English or American viewer. It says something interesting about Norway’s liberal censorship laws that the film was the first to earn an 18 certificate in 17 years in its home country. It is also probably such strong content that has kept the film from procuring a worldwide release yet as at the time of writing it is still unavailable on UK DVD, so for horror aficionado’s a multi-region DVD player may be the only way you will get to see it’s intriguing, shocking, and stylish take on classic psych-horror themes.
Having identified the two currently popular horror genres as the torture showcase and the psychological slow-burner I’d like to now locate two largely spatial narrative themes that are commonly explored more prevalently in the latter, those of the inner mental space and the architectural space of the home. Perhaps because they represent our two most comfortable and known spaces of normality pioneering horror films have understandably exploited what can happen when their boundaries break down in disturbing ways. ‘Next Door’ explores a pleasing mixture of both and eventually blurs any distinction between the two until the audience, like the main character John (Kristoffer Joner), is unaware of where one space ends and the other begins. On first inspection the plot is as brutally simple as the violence it encompasses but it eventually reveals an underlying complexity that is rather abstract. John finds himself living alone in his spacious modern city apartment feeling bereft following the break-up of his relationship with long-term partner Ingrid (Anna Bache-Wiig). The first scene shows her returning to pick up her remaining things and the unavoidable tension in the air is exacerbated by the presence of Ingrid’s possible potential new boyfriend waiting in the car outside. The split does not appear to have been an amicable one and their sparse, strained conversation hints that John has since become something of a recluse.
The next day John returns home from work and upon leaving the elevator of his apartment building he encounters Anne (Cecilie A. Mosli), a pretty young girl who lives in the flat next-door to him whom he has not seen previously. She asks him into her apartment to help shift a heavy piece of furniture. Their flat is unsettlingly disrupted by piled up furniture and disconcerting scratches on the floor. This unusual situation is made worse when Anne starts to ask penetrating questions and state facts about John’s recent break-up of which she seems to know a lot about. Feeling uncomfortable John leaves only to return later when Anne asks him to guard his sick younger sister Kim (Julia Schacht) while she fetches medicine. Anne seals the deal by telling him a story about how three men previously broke into their apartment and sexually abused Kim, hence the reason that they earlier wanted the wardrobe moving in front of the door. John reluctantly agrees and begins to tentatively explore their apartment, scenes that are tense and full of suspense simply due to the classic set-up of a character’s presence in a claustrophobic unknown space being used well, but things become more unsettling when the previously unseen Kim enters.
The following actions bear the closest relation to the torture-based genre horrors of the current Hollywood landscape and I feel that a brief examination of it is necessary as it is a pivotal moment but doesn’t reveal too much about the film’s conclusion. Kim is a typical Lolita-esque temptress and the questions she addresses to John become increasingly bizarre until she concludes by telling him in gross detail the story of her previous attack. All through this sequence the camera is strictly aligned with John’s POV fixed directly on Kim meaning that her disturbing sexual taunts are directed as much at the viewer as at him, representing an extreme example of film theorist Laura Mulvey’s concept of the film camera aligning with the eroticising ‘male gaze’. This storytelling eventually winds up in an extremely violent sex scene initiated by Kim where she seduces John then punches him in the face with full force thus taunting John to do the same back to her. Both parties seem unsure of whether they’re enjoying their sadomasochistic sexual games and to add yet another layer to the psychosexual breakdown is the fact that Anne returns home halfway through and secretly watches the two. The subject matter is shocking in itself but the grim and unflinching realism with which it is portrayed makes it an incredibly uneasy scene to witness. The most obvious counterpoints are Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini’s scenes in David Lynch’s ‘Blue Velvet’ (1986), but where that director was famously forced to cut the moment of Frank Booth’s fist impacting with Dorothy Valen’s body thus making the audiences imagination kick in upon hearing the resulting slaps, here the impact of each other’s fist is shown in gory detail. Lynch said then that he preferred the resulting effect on the audiences’ lacunae thinking it more effective, but it has to be said that I found ‘Next Door’s’ similar scene to be more disturbing because of its stark frankness. Violence and sex presented separately have reached a high level of acceptance in mainstream cinema all over the world these days, but sexual violence still remains taboo so it’s unsurprising that the film has yet to see a more prominent release pattern, and understandable that the liberal Norwegian censors saw fit to grant a rare 18 certificate. ‘Next Door’s’ use of violence is also markedly different from its American counterparts in its wilful ambiguity. While it is of course shocking due to obvious cognitive connotations to see someone’s eye socket get burned by a blowtorch or a body be repeatedly punctured by dirty hypodermics as seen in ‘Hostel’ (2005) and ‘Saw’ (2004) respectively, a violent scene in which both of the victims appear strangely consenting is much more problematic and therefore interesting for an audience.
The resulting fallout from this scene inevitably creates more tension and anxiety in John’s mind and the rest of the film sees his confused reaction to the events cloud his mental interior to the point of insanity. An inspired use of flashbacks slowly reveals details of his previous relationship with Ingrid and cleverly contrasts this with his current deteriorating mental state and the excessively transgressive sexual situations he now finds himself in. We eventually learn that his and Ingrid’s relationship was never that idyllic towards the end and that his newly discovered neighbours might be playing some serious psychological games with him. However, such plot details from the past and the present are extremely scarce and narrative information is skilfully held back until the latest possible moment so things never become as glaringly obvious as they often are in lesser horror films. At just 77 minutes the film is startlingly yet refreshingly short too, especially in a world in which the average length of Hollywood films is constantly increasing yet expressing less and less of interest. As a result of this not one moment seems un-necessary or superfluous. Without revealing too much ‘Next Door’s’ remaining scenes following the masochistic sex act explore the collapse and eventual disturbing synergy between the spaces of John’s mind, as a typical example of a debased modern man, and his sparse apartment, as a typical example of a modern city living space. There are only a handful of scenes that take place outside of the apartment building, yet none are set outdoors, thus the general mise-en-scene is one of extreme claustrophobia and isolated anxiety.
While’ Next Door’ may share unplanned similarities with modern horror tropes and the work of David Lynch its narrative and aesthetic stylings directly recall Polanski’s work in the 60’s, particularly his modern apartment set films ‘Repulsion’ (1965) and ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ (1968). Once again it is a European director producing a fiercely original spin on the horror genre and ‘Next Door’s’ director Pal Sletaune has produced a natural successor to these films. In Polanski’s earlier efforts the protagonists may have been female, but they similarly suffered from horrific mental breakdowns caused by outside forces invading their mental and physical spaces that began to manifest in the architectural surroundings of their home, exactly as it does in this film. However due to a general relaxing of film censorship since the 60’s Sletaune is able to show his character’s breakdown in all its gory detail, and the climaxing scenes are almost as equally shocking as the earlier sex scene. However, in one last nod towards the first type of modern horror films I outlined at the beginning, ‘Next Door’ has a twist ending. This is less of a sudden narrative reveal the type of which Shyamalan exploits to an increasingly indifferent audience reaction but more of a muted explanation and so feels ever so slightly unnecessary: perhaps a more established director would have been more ambiguous. Still, this doesn’t dull the films pleasures at all and just enough detail is left unknown to warrant further viewings unlike more obvious ‘twist ending’ films that inspire little desire to re-visit.
Aside from its original take on familiar generic conventions ‘Next Door’ also tackles modern sexual mores and gender politics in a head-on way even if the directors’ views on these are never made explicit. John’s inability to cope with the rejection of a long-term partner and his undefined but clearly mundane office job exemplifies the trappings of the emasculated modern man. While reactionary critics may cry misogyny at the scenes of brutality towards female foils that are never fully explored as full personalities, modern post-feminist critics should see this as an exploration of the failure of masculinity in such situations: John is pathetically easily led into temptation by his neighbours and clearly unable to cope with problems in any sane meaningful way causing him to spiral into a dangerously interior mental void that he may never recover from. Either way it’s hard to imagine ‘Next Door’ having gone down well in 70’s when the emerging feminist film theorists unfairly vilified the slasher film genre. Still as previously stated the film’s pleasures are derived from its brutal minimalism so it would be churlish to expect the film to express any overarching theories or revelations. It’s instead better to just enjoy the new life the director breathes into the horror genre-specific explorations of collapsing mental and architectural spaces and the highly economic technical and aesthetic precision through which he achieves these effects.
Country: Norway
Budget: £
Length: 77mins
Filmography:
‘Rosemary’s Baby’, 1968, Roman Polanski, William Castle Productions
‘Repulsion’, 1965, Roman Polanski, Compton Films
‘Hostel’, 2005, Eli Roth, Hostel LLC
‘Saw', 2004, James Wan, Evolution Entertainment
‘Blue Velvet’, 1986, David Lynch, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG)
‘The Ring’, 1998, Hideo Nakata, Omega Project
‘Blair Witch Project’, 1999, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, Haxan Films
'Sixth Sense’, 1999, M. Night Shyamalan, Barry Mendel Productions
Pub/2008
More like this:
Old Boy, 2003, directed by Chan-wook Park
Irreversible, 2002, directed by Gaspar Noe
Irma Vep, 1996, directed by Olivier Assayas