Cheaply made but devilishly efficient, this rugged entry in the suburban horror sub-genre is a maelstrom of despair that engulfs your soul in a repugnant spiral of disillusionment that will leave broken and hollow. The weirdly excessive gore scenes showcased near the end are in it for a small part, but what really distinguishes this film from other such genre entries is its permeating ugliness. The characters, the sets, the situations, everything here shares an unfathomable crass quality that actually makes them all uneasy to look at. More importantly, Neighborhood Watch offers no safe haven to the viewer, no break. It is ugly from top to bottom. It is a prison that you will unlikely leave unscathed. And, distressing as it may be, it is a prison with airs of reality.
A prison with airs of reality:
the Zeecor corporation.
the Zeecor corporation.
How disgusting is life?
Let us take care of the bullshit first. While the film boasts to be based on real events, it doesn't derive any form of realism from it. Besides, realism is rarely an asset in an horror film. What we have got here is a depressing semblance of reality. It's a narrative that could be conceived as plausible, but only in a very specific context of mental illness. The film's efficiency derives not from such considerations. It derives from an overwhelming, and somewhat artificial, insistence on the uglier aspects of daily life and our casual acceptance thereof. The problem is not with a certain undercurrent of madness plaguing American Southerners, as one is let to believe by the offensive ramblings of a nasty radio guru which the protagonist listens to day-in day-out, it is with the daily sacrifices we have to make in order to attain a prefabricated form of happiness, which the desert bungalow is synonymous with. It is also a film about the part everyone plays in the unhappiness of his neighbors and fellowmen. And while it hammers its point home with some shockingly repulsive imagery and a healthy dose of grotesque caricature, it never loses sight of the ball. In short, Neighborhood Watch is trash with a purpose.
The plot of the film involves newlyweds Bob and Wendi moving into a ghost town created by the nefarious Zeecor corporation, where Bob has just landed a job. Despite the decrepit aspect of the town and its senile population, the couple seems happy at first, enjoying the feeling of success one can derive from the ownership of a desert bungalow. But soon after their arrival, they become plagued by a mentally-disturbed neighbor named Adrian Trumbull, a man so evil and despicable as to elicit disgust from even the most forgiving of Christians. Annoyed with the couple having sex in his sterile, sexless town, the man does everything he can to intrude in their lives, appearing as a friend to be when he is actually akin to the antichrist. As a token of good will, he even offers his neighbors candy, which he has laced with powerful laxatives. After a while, during which Bob and Wendi try to ward Adrian off to no avail, he even poisons their water supply, sending them in a wicked spiral of sickness. But after many trials and tribulations, including many nasty scenes in the bathroom, Trumbull is defeated while performing some amateur surgery on himself.
Prefabricated towns, prefabricated villains
While it is quite easy to grasp the protagonists' terror, antagonist Adrian Trumbull remains a very problematic figure. Halfway between the casually intrusive neighbor and the demented psycho, he seems to be both a would-be realistic and a fantastically evil character. While his mild-mannered, slightly insistent relationship with the protagonists seems to imply nothing more than a clumsy attempt at dialogue, the overdetermined sets used to depict the inside of his house would seem to suggest a total loon. The dark, cluttered space where he spends his days, his chaotic collection of jars containing pickled body parts and poisons, the offensive radio chatter that hums in the air and the guy's nasty habit of eating the crusty bits of flesh surrounding a stitched-up wound on his hairy belly, all of these point squarely to an unrepentant madman. And while these somewhat generic indicators of madness contribute their fair share to the disturbing imagery of the film, they contrast with the more grounded, would-be realistic horror elements used in setting up the narrative. Most importantly, it makes Adrian to be a man so whacked out as to warrant some sort of characterization. Making him instead to be a simple consumer of radio drivel doesn't even start to explain his current situation. If you're still unsure about my words, then please be directed to the official website of the film in order to better bask in the atmosphere permeating Adrian Trumbull's house. What you will find is something far removed from the standard esthetics of the suburban horror film, where horror is hidden beyond the surface. What you will find is the endless multiplication of "horrific" surfaces, something akin to what had previously been done with John Doe's apartment in Se7en, but without as much relevance within the narrative. And while I feel the makers of this film should've expended on Adrian's background, I also feel that this could've been a self-defeating exercise as nothing could possibly be satisfactory in trying to explain his casual evilness. As it stands, the man is perhaps too much of a caricature, or a caricature that's just out of synch with the other caricatures contained in spades within the film.
The plot of the film involves newlyweds Bob and Wendi moving into a ghost town created by the nefarious Zeecor corporation, where Bob has just landed a job. Despite the decrepit aspect of the town and its senile population, the couple seems happy at first, enjoying the feeling of success one can derive from the ownership of a desert bungalow. But soon after their arrival, they become plagued by a mentally-disturbed neighbor named Adrian Trumbull, a man so evil and despicable as to elicit disgust from even the most forgiving of Christians. Annoyed with the couple having sex in his sterile, sexless town, the man does everything he can to intrude in their lives, appearing as a friend to be when he is actually akin to the antichrist. As a token of good will, he even offers his neighbors candy, which he has laced with powerful laxatives. After a while, during which Bob and Wendi try to ward Adrian off to no avail, he even poisons their water supply, sending them in a wicked spiral of sickness. But after many trials and tribulations, including many nasty scenes in the bathroom, Trumbull is defeated while performing some amateur surgery on himself.
Suburban dilemma: Unwanted
generosity vs panicked refusal.
generosity vs panicked refusal.
Prefabricated towns, prefabricated villains
While it is quite easy to grasp the protagonists' terror, antagonist Adrian Trumbull remains a very problematic figure. Halfway between the casually intrusive neighbor and the demented psycho, he seems to be both a would-be realistic and a fantastically evil character. While his mild-mannered, slightly insistent relationship with the protagonists seems to imply nothing more than a clumsy attempt at dialogue, the overdetermined sets used to depict the inside of his house would seem to suggest a total loon. The dark, cluttered space where he spends his days, his chaotic collection of jars containing pickled body parts and poisons, the offensive radio chatter that hums in the air and the guy's nasty habit of eating the crusty bits of flesh surrounding a stitched-up wound on his hairy belly, all of these point squarely to an unrepentant madman. And while these somewhat generic indicators of madness contribute their fair share to the disturbing imagery of the film, they contrast with the more grounded, would-be realistic horror elements used in setting up the narrative. Most importantly, it makes Adrian to be a man so whacked out as to warrant some sort of characterization. Making him instead to be a simple consumer of radio drivel doesn't even start to explain his current situation. If you're still unsure about my words, then please be directed to the official website of the film in order to better bask in the atmosphere permeating Adrian Trumbull's house. What you will find is something far removed from the standard esthetics of the suburban horror film, where horror is hidden beyond the surface. What you will find is the endless multiplication of "horrific" surfaces, something akin to what had previously been done with John Doe's apartment in Se7en, but without as much relevance within the narrative. And while I feel the makers of this film should've expended on Adrian's background, I also feel that this could've been a self-defeating exercise as nothing could possibly be satisfactory in trying to explain his casual evilness. As it stands, the man is perhaps too much of a caricature, or a caricature that's just out of synch with the other caricatures contained in spades within the film.
I remember seeing this film the year it came out, but I also remember hating it. When trying to recall why, I can only think about the lame story structure and the somewhat redundant nature thereof. I also remember being underwhelmed by the gore after falling victim to the overblown publicity focused on supposed cases of hives and nervous breakdowns suffered by theater patrons during test screenings. I mean, if one were to put an unsuspecting housewife in front of this film, then maybe you would garner such pathological results. But seeing how I shared the screening with the hardened crowd of Fantasia (where only one person out of a sold-out crowd of 750 walked out of A Serbian Film), I should've known better and expect nothing in the way of transcendental gore. But being the explorer of extreme horror that I am, I still entertained a crazy hope fueled by my own emotional instability. And I was let down. Actually, it took a second screening, during one of my frequent moments of depression, for me to really understand what the film was truly about, namely everyday horror, and not extraordinary horror as I was first led to believe.
Horror is in the desert bungalow
With the aggressive publicity campaign focused on the goriest, but also most overdetermined aspects of the film, the distributors of this film have failed to delineate the most horrific aspects thereof, namely the everyday ugliness to be found in the protagonist's occupation and the "dream house" which he has just bought with his candid wife. The arid, lawn-less exterior of the bungalow, its repulsive architecture and darkened interiors contribute much more to the horrific atmosphere permeating the film than the stuffy interiors of Adrian Trumbull's house, with its jars full of preserved body parts and poisons. Youthful dreams of ownership, moving up in the world, starting a family, these are all dirtied by the process of realizing that dream by selecting the cheapest package available, including corporate lodging in a ghost town filled with old people and the physical partaking in the environmental crimes committed by said corporation. Then, there's the possibility of ladder-climbing, but it involves the whoring of oneself in an effort to be extracted from the window-less depths of a bland office building. As disruptive as it may appear, the involvement of a psychotic neighbor hellbent on poisoning you is merely a supplementary horror thrown on an overcrowded canvas. Besides, the overdetermined imagery associated with the man's evil eventually falls flat but in the places where one can imagine him to be nothing more than an intrusive neighbor, which taps into the mundane aspects of horror that I praise here.
That said, despite the highly implausible surgery scenes, the overly aggressive tone of the radio preacher and the excessively cluttered shelves permeating the antagonist's lair, the whole thing plays out along terms familiar enough to make you share the protagonists' ordeal. Seeing how it revolves around everyday annoyances (such as a neighbor's annoying intrusiveness, trouble in the workplace and a fading sense of community), it will undoubtedly involve even the most level-headed viewer. There is no supernatural occurrences here, no vampire or alien next door, just the straightforward, highly intelligible reality of sickness. Hence, the power of diarrhea, hives, and stomachaches to better help the viewer partake in the action as a physical entity not impervious to sickness. The sneaky nature of chemical warfare (depicted as an expedient both for Adrian and the Zeecor corporation) takes a horrific dimension in the corporeality of the protagonists and their fellowmen (the viewers). As for the crumbling sense of community, it also affects us all on both sides of the screen. The isolation of the protagonists, their alienation with their neighbors, their vain attempt to mobilize people under the titular banner, all of this should also hit the viewer right at home, where all of our individual/familial bubbles are lined up contiguously without really touching or interpenetrating. Horror is thus produced not by introducing an horrific element within a homely world, but by highlighting (with recourse to a caricature) the horrific elements deeply ingrained in what should be a homely world.
Extraordinary horror: Adrian
Trumbull probing his own insides.
Trumbull probing his own insides.
Horror is in the desert bungalow
With the aggressive publicity campaign focused on the goriest, but also most overdetermined aspects of the film, the distributors of this film have failed to delineate the most horrific aspects thereof, namely the everyday ugliness to be found in the protagonist's occupation and the "dream house" which he has just bought with his candid wife. The arid, lawn-less exterior of the bungalow, its repulsive architecture and darkened interiors contribute much more to the horrific atmosphere permeating the film than the stuffy interiors of Adrian Trumbull's house, with its jars full of preserved body parts and poisons. Youthful dreams of ownership, moving up in the world, starting a family, these are all dirtied by the process of realizing that dream by selecting the cheapest package available, including corporate lodging in a ghost town filled with old people and the physical partaking in the environmental crimes committed by said corporation. Then, there's the possibility of ladder-climbing, but it involves the whoring of oneself in an effort to be extracted from the window-less depths of a bland office building. As disruptive as it may appear, the involvement of a psychotic neighbor hellbent on poisoning you is merely a supplementary horror thrown on an overcrowded canvas. Besides, the overdetermined imagery associated with the man's evil eventually falls flat but in the places where one can imagine him to be nothing more than an intrusive neighbor, which taps into the mundane aspects of horror that I praise here.
That said, despite the highly implausible surgery scenes, the overly aggressive tone of the radio preacher and the excessively cluttered shelves permeating the antagonist's lair, the whole thing plays out along terms familiar enough to make you share the protagonists' ordeal. Seeing how it revolves around everyday annoyances (such as a neighbor's annoying intrusiveness, trouble in the workplace and a fading sense of community), it will undoubtedly involve even the most level-headed viewer. There is no supernatural occurrences here, no vampire or alien next door, just the straightforward, highly intelligible reality of sickness. Hence, the power of diarrhea, hives, and stomachaches to better help the viewer partake in the action as a physical entity not impervious to sickness. The sneaky nature of chemical warfare (depicted as an expedient both for Adrian and the Zeecor corporation) takes a horrific dimension in the corporeality of the protagonists and their fellowmen (the viewers). As for the crumbling sense of community, it also affects us all on both sides of the screen. The isolation of the protagonists, their alienation with their neighbors, their vain attempt to mobilize people under the titular banner, all of this should also hit the viewer right at home, where all of our individual/familial bubbles are lined up contiguously without really touching or interpenetrating. Horror is thus produced not by introducing an horrific element within a homely world, but by highlighting (with recourse to a caricature) the horrific elements deeply ingrained in what should be a homely world.
Everyday horror: the desert
bungalow as dream house.
bungalow as dream house.
Deadly end in sight
Repackaged under the lame title Deadly End, Neighborhood Watch has left the festival scene for the video market without much of a fuss, the main reason being that it isn't your average horror film. It is a highly offensive piece of trash. Still, it is a very powerful, very depressing effort as it cultivates the darker aspects of a somewhat mundane reality. In my mind, this is a film not unlike Belgian export Ex-Drummer in the sense that I would both recommend you see it, but also stay away from it. Both these films are so repulsive in their depiction of everyday life as to completely depress you. But they do so for a purpose. They do so for you to look around for a moment, and think. Think about what it is for you to live your life as you do, and what it is for others to live their lives, then think about what it is you could do so that the bleakness shown in these movies is no more. I originally wanted to rate the film 3 out of 5, but as I was writing the present review, I felt a sort of icky feeling against my skin. I even shied away from a third viewing, knowing what to expect, but not exactly sure that I wanted to experience it... Such staying power is rare amongst casual genre films. And if you consider director Graeme Whifler's career, it is all the more impressive, seeing how he thus trades the silly one-liners of flat slasher film Dr. Giggles (which he penned) for corrosive satire, making Neighborhood Watch more than a simple video UFO, but a masterpiece in its own right.
3/5 Cheap, but very effective, this film successfully walks the fine line between satire and farce to create a very twisted meditation on the horrors of everyday life.
Footnote 02/14: Removed half a star from the rating. Got carried away again because of my depressed mindset at the time of writing this review.
3/5 Cheap, but very effective, this film successfully walks the fine line between satire and farce to create a very twisted meditation on the horrors of everyday life.
Footnote 02/14: Removed half a star from the rating. Got carried away again because of my depressed mindset at the time of writing this review.
