Josh Stewart (The Collector) is reunited with The Collector director Marcus Dunstan yet again to play a criminal who finds himself in a house and a nutcase. This has the feel, in ways, of Don't Breathe with the filming style and soundtrack style of The Collector series, but as a whole there wasn't an awful lot to shout about here and this is a damn shame.
I am a huge lover of Dunstan's previous works (The Collector is one of my favourite slasher flicks from the modern era) but The Neighbour just lacks something for me. I'm not sure if it the typical 'people in the basement' story or just the mundane way it was delivered but I wasn't thrilled or on the edge of my seat. The film looks gritty, which goes in it's favor for a little while but there is no obvious reason for Troy to be keeping people in his basement other than the money. Did something happen to his wife? we see pictures of him, his wife and his son in the house but she isn't really mentioned much. Josh Stewart just plays the same role as he did in The Collector while Alex Essoe plays the damaged girl in distress who goes postal near the end.
Is this a bad film? No not bad, it is more predictable than anything else. Even the twist addition of the police officer helping Troy and his boys in hiding the dead bodies wasn't that shocking. You knew she was a bad one by the way she stopped John. It is worth a watch. There are worse films which are similar to this one the market and overall the film is well acted. I would love to see Dunstan do something a little different though, like an adaptation of his co-authored novel Blacklight? The Neighbour is a thriller for a lazy afternoon when you are stuck for stuff to watch.