#2 – Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door
Ugh. This is the film based on Jack Ketchum’s infamous book, which itself was based on the now-infamous Sylvia Likens murder. The short-version: In the summer of 1958, a 14-year old girl named Sylvia Likens was forced to move in with her abusive aunt after the death of her parents. By years-end, her aunt had tricked the neighborhood children to ultimately torture and kill her.
This is a fictionalized account, with some names changed and details altered (in some ways less awful than the actual crime), but it is a harsh, uncompromising film. Despite not containing lots of gore, what happens here is a grueling journey, all the more difficult to watch thanks to its basis on such a ghastly crime. Let’s put it this way: I saw this movie in a packed theatre, everyone laughing at the start. At the end, everyone left in silence.