An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at the 2020 Swedish film The Evil Next Door
After a family moves into a new multi-family house, they start encountering some strange events coming from the abandoned other side and something evil targets one of the family.
Is it Scary?
The scares are your run of the mill scares that won’t leave you shaking in the night. There are a few effective jump scares and the main “monster’s” design is creepy but overall not memorable.
Detailed Plot:
The film opens with a barefoot woman looking for her child, Kim, through an abandoned house. After hearing sounds of heavy footsteps we catch a glimpse of someone, presumably Kim, being dragged into a room. The mother runs towards the room as an unseen force slams the door closed in front of her.
She bangs on it and calls out to Kim but there’s no response. The door opens on it’s own revealing a now empty room and the mother breaks down in the middle of the room. So I’m assuming they’re not our main characters.
We pan out of the house and it’s part of a two family home. Since she was barefoot and in a nightgown we can assume she lives in one side and her child was taken next door by something evil. And now we know how they figured out the English title.
The screen fades to black and we have a title screen with some pretty dramatic music.
We open on a family of three driving to look at a house for sale, the father Fredrick (played by Linus Wahlgren), son Lucas (played by Eddie Eriksson Dominguez), and step-mother Shirin (played by Dilan Gwyn). As they arrive at the house we find out it’s the same house as the opening of the movie.
The realtor gives the family a tour and, noticeably, fails to mention a child went missing in the home previously. Either that or Fredrik and Shirin didn’t care since they decide to buy the house.
While the tour is going on, Lucas explores the house on his own and after hearing childish giggles coming from an empty room, he investigates. Fucking why though? In the room, the closet door opens on it’s own and we hear croaking coming from inside the darkness. We then see there’s someone else in the room with Lucas.
Fredrick and Shirin enter and don’t question what the hell Lucas is doing but Lucas tells them “there’s a child living here.” Fredrik and Shirin take the ominous warning seriously and nope out of the house. Just kidding, Fredrik says there USED to be a child living there and completely ignores the warning.
As the family drive off agreeing to buy the home, Lucas keeps quiet with a pretty scared look on his face, sort of like he’s seen a ghost. The screen fades to black and we see it’s now Friday, September 26, 2014.
The family move in and during unpacking, Shirin finds a photo of Lucas’s mom where we can assume she died of cancer when Lucas was a baby. We also see Lucas appears to have gotten over his fear as he is putting his stuff in the same room where he heard the croaking earlier.
Later as they continue to unpack, Fredrik gets a call from a possible job and leaves Lucas alone in the living room. Almost immediately Lucas’s attention is grabbed by something or someone off-screen. We cut to Shirin exploring the house and, in the closet at the end of the hall, she finds a boarded up attic door.
Shirin removes the boards but when she finishes, Lucas appears staring at the attic door. When she asks what’s wrong we get a jump scare as the door opens up on it’s own and the ladder to the attic drops down.
Shirin heads up the ladder and we see the attic is connecting the two sides of the house. Before she can explore further Fredrik calls her down for some news. He tells her that the job offer will require him to leave a few nights during the week meaning she’ll be alone with Lucas. She tells him to take it and that she and Lucas will be fine. Unfortunately they don’t know they’re in a horror movie.
A week later on Sunday, October 5th, Fredrik sets off for his new job leaving Shirin and Lucas alone. Later Lucas is outside playing alone when a ball rolls to him from an opening in the shrubs connecting both sides of the home. Lucas rolls the ball back through the opening and an unseen force rolls it back.
Thinking it’s a game Lucas once again rolls it through but this time it doesn’t return, for some reason Lucas takes this as an invitation to go through the shrubs. Finding the ball, something in a window catches his attention and he stares ominously though we never see what he was staring at.
That night Shirin hears Lucas talking to someone through the walls, which should be an immediate red flag, but instead she tells him it’s time for bed.
In bed Lucas asks if people can come back to life after they’ve died. Shirin assumes this is about his mom and asks but Lucas tells her no it’s not about her. Yet another red flag she ignores.
A couple of days later on Tuesday, Shirin is home alone and hears knocking coming from the wall, the same wall that Lucas was talking to several days ago. She listens close and hears some whispers but is distracted when her phone vibrates.
Turns out Shirin forgot to pick up Lucas from school. She rushes there and the teacher tells her it was Lucas’s turn to tell a story at school today and spoke about his new friend who lives next door. Since we know the house next door is empty, what the fuck.
Shirin calls Lucas over and they leave but we get to see what Lucas was drawing which is something Shirin doesn’t see.
That night Shirin sends Lucas upstairs to brush his teeth and to get ready for bed but moments later she hears giggling and running. She heads upstairs and while walking down the hall we see a child appear behind her who runs off on all fours towards a room.
Hearing those sounds and thinking it’s Lucas, Shirin heads into the room as well. The child giggles from under the bed and Shirin looks under but it’s too dark to see. She reaches in just as Lucas appears behind her, at the door.
She asks what he was doing and Lucas replies “we were playing.” Though she’s clearly rattled, Shirin doesn’t ask any more questions or continue to look under the bed and simply puts Lucas to bed. What the hell Shirin? Lucas asks for Shirin to sing him a song we heard his dad sing him several days ago but Shirin refuses, saying it should be something special between him and his dad.
Two days later Shirin and Lucas are at the playground outside their home and another mother in the neighborhood asks Shirin if she’s new. Shirin confirms she is and points to their house. The mother gives her a ominous look but doesn’t elaborate further.
That night as Lucas is counting aloud for Hide-and-Seek Shirin asks what he’s doing. Lucas tells her nothing and Shirin responds by telling him there is no one living next door. Lucas denies this and the two argue. It escalates with Lucas telling her she is not his mother, causing Shirin to leave the room.
Lucas continues to play Hide-and-Seek and, while searching for someone, the closet leading to the attic opens. He heads up the ladder but about halfway through we see long fingernails appear and then this hideous thing jumps out before we cut to black.
Later Shirin finds Lucas in the closet hyperventilating. Thinking the door accidentally closed on him and that’s what caused him to be scared, she brings him to bed and stays with him till he falls asleep.
In the kitchen she once again hears knocking coming from the wall and this time knocks back. When something reciprocates, she puts her ear to wall and hears someone whisper, “He’s coming.” In a jump scare, something then bangs on the wall.
Lucas appears at the top of the stairs and tells Shirin it’s the boogeyman.
The two head outside and Shirin peaks through the window of the house next door. At first she doesn’t see anything but when she looks again she sees a child on all fours who then runs off.
We cut to a little bit later with police at the scene, they tell Shirin there are no signs of a break-in and no one responded when they knocked. This is apparently the extent of the search that they’re willing to do despite Shirin telling them she saw an abandoned child in the abandoned house.
Fredrik also arrives and is slightly angry at Shirin for keeping Lucas outside without a coat while it’s freezing. Inside, Shirin shows and tells Fredrik where the knocks and the voice came from but he believes it was just the house making sounds. Everyone remembers when your home randomly warned you about an incoming boogeyman right?
Fredrik tells her he’s taking the following day off and will stay with the family to ensure Shirin is not afraid. No one seems to remember that Lucas was also there and heard the knocking too but screw it, let’s not ask him.
The following day the family bond at home and you begin to forget this is a horror movie until, at a neighborhood barbeque, the same mother from earlier approaches Shirin. She tells her the previous family that lived in their new house had a child go missing. We can assume she is talking about the mother from the start of the movie.
The following Monday, again home alone, Shirin has grown suspicious of their possibly being something supernatural going on. Taking a baby camera she places it in Lucas’s room and watches the monitor while she stands outside the room.
After a few moments she sees a child standing in the corner of the room.
Terrified, she goes into the room but sees the kid on the monitor is gone. She then looks back at the monitor and sees the child standing behind her at the door. When she turns around he’s gone.
That night as Lucas is brushing his teeth, Shirin tells him he can sleep in her bed. Several hours later we hear a voice wake Shirin up, at first she believes it’s Lucas but she notices Lucas is still asleep next to her.
Heading into the hallway to investigate, Shirin sees the closet door leading to the attic is now open and a voice begins to ask Shirin for help. She climbs up into the attic and crosses over into the other house beginning her search for the voice.
Walking through the house she doesn’t see something crawl behind her and up the stairs.
Shirin approaches the same room we saw something pull Kim into at the start of the movie but before she can open the door, we hear Lucas screaming. Shirin rushes back to other side as we see the door to the room open and a large hole is now in the center of the room.
Now back with Lucas, he tells Shirin something tried to take him leaving a mark on his arm. The following day Fredrik is home and argues with Shirin about having left Lucas alone. Though she tells him something supernatural is going on, Fredrik dismisses it and believes someone broke into the house and hurt Lucas.
We later see Shirin researching the home and finding articles referencing the abduction of Kim. Since articles exist, you would think they would have done this research before buying the house…
Shirin tracks down the location of the previous owners but before she leaves she hears Fredrik asking Lucas questions, implying he thinks Shirin was the one who hurt him.
At a car dealership, Shirin finds Peter Lindwall, the previous owner of the house. She tells him she thinks the strange occurrences in the house and what happened to Kim are connected but Peter dismisses this telling her his wife, Jenny, is mentally ill.
He then tells her Jenny believed something in the house wanted to take Kim. That’s enough for Shirin to realize maybe Jenny was right and asks Peter to have Jenny call her.
Back at the house Fredrik tells Shirin he quit the job but still has to head in that night to tie up some loose ends, so some supernatural shit is totally going to go down at night. Later Shirin asks Lucas if the boy he plays with in the house is Kim. He confirms it is and tells her, Kim doesn’t want to boogeyman to take him too.
Shirin vows to not let anyone take him and we next see her boarding up the door to the attic.
That night as Lucas sleeps, Shirin keeps watch and hears a loud rattle coming from the closet. She approaches it but the bangs get louder and the door shakes causing her to run back to the room. Arming herself with a hammer, she closes the door and tells Lucas to stay quiet.
We hear several loud footsteps approach the door and the croaking sounds from earlier appear to come from directly behind the door. Shirin raises the hammer and opens the door but finds the hallway empty.
Hearing Kim calling for help from downstairs, Shirin tells Lucas to stay in the room as she heads downstairs. There she approaches a chair where the crying Kim can be heard but, in a jump scare, he pops up above the chair yelling, “He is here.”
We cut to Lucas upstairs in the room, alone, where we hear the croaking sounds again and Lucas screams. Shirin runs back upstairs and sees Lucas being dragged down the hall. Before the boogeyman can pull Lucas up into the attic Shirin grabs him and pulls him down.
Later at the hospital we see the struggle has left Lucas with a cut on his forehead. Fredrik arrives and blames Shirin for the accident. The following day he kicks her out and prevents her from saying bye to Lucas. Shirin tells Fredrik something is coming for Lucas but he tells her she sounds crazy and accuses her of hurting Lucas.
Shirin leaves and gets a call from Jenny whom she goes to visit. There, Jenny has a picture of Kim revealing that Kim is actually a girl and not the boy Lucas has been playing with. Jenny tells her the boy is actually the boogeyman in disguise.
Back at the house we hear creaking come from the hallway just as Shirin arrives at the home and bangs on the door. As Fredrik argues with her, Lucas investigates the sound and is attacked by the boogeyman.
Shirin and Fredrik hear Lucas’s screams and run upstairs in time to see Lucas dragged up into the attic. They chase after him with Fredrik leading and are attacked in the attic, Fredrik falls through the ceiling and gets knocked out,
Shirin continues on into the other side of the house and follows Lucas’s screams, seeing him dragged down the hole in the room. She runs into the room, jamming her arm into the doorway as an unseen force attempts to slam it close. She’s able to push it open and then jumps down the hole.
In the crawlspace of house Shirin searches for Lucas but she’s unable to find any sign of him. She then hears cracking bones and croaking from a distance which alerts her that the boogeyman is coming. She attempts to run but is unable to avoid him as she’s dragged away and we cut to black.
A little while later Shirin wakes up seeing the boogeyman disguised as a child caressing Lucas and telling him to sleep. She yells at it to leave him alone but the boogeyman smiles and runs to a dark corner. Shirin tells him she isn’t afraid of him and boogeyman responds telling Shirin that Lucas already has a mother.
It shapeshifts into the image of Lucas’s mom from the picture Shirin saw earlier. The boogeyman approaches Shirin telling her she never cared or loved Lucas.
It then disappears and reappears in a far corner still smiling but now taking the form of a child. It tells Shirin it’s time for her to sleep too and shapeshifts to it’s actual form.
Shirin tells it she’s not afraid and loves Lucas. The boogeyman winces in pain and Shirin continues telling it Lucas belongs to her causing it to cry out and disappear into the darkness.
Apparently love is all it takes to defeat the boogeyman. Shirin runs over to the unresponsive Lucas and begins to sing the song she refused to sing earlier. Lucas finally wakes up and tells her he knew she would come.
The film ends as Shirin carries Lucas outside and Fredrik appears embracing them both.
What Happened in the End?
The boogeyman was defeated by love! It appears the boogeyman is a metaphor for a mother’s love which is a good metaphor but raises a bunch of questions like, does that mean Jenny didn’t love Kim? Is it a demon of hate? Why does the boogeyman want the children? To love them?
Speaking of which, we don’t learn anything about the boogeyman either. Where did it come from? Is it isolated to only that house? Why?
Unfortunately none of these questions have answers. It really appears as the movie was trying to drive home the “boogeyman is a metaphor of a missing mother’s love” at least in Shirin’s case since we have no idea why Kim was targeted.
During the movie Shirin was a bit distance towards Lucas, possibly because she didn’t think she could fill his mother’s shoes or maybe she didn’t want to be a mother? This is another thing the movie fails to really tells us. We have no idea why Shirin and Lucas aren’t close but once she decides she wants to be his mother, she beats the boogeyman by professing her love.
Review:
Overall I liked the concept of The Evil Next Door, the story they were trying to tell is not original or ground-breaking but the acting, dialogue, and pace of the movie worked well. While the movie had it’s moments of suspense, it never really struck a terrifying chord with me but the look of the boogeyman and the way it moves was effective.
We also never learn anything about the boogeyman or the main characters. Where did the boogeyman come from? What does it do with the children? Eat them? Care for them? What does Fredrik do for work? What does Shirin do for work? We see her working on her laptop in a few scenes but we have no idea what she’s doing. Why did they move? We don’t learn anything about the couple’s past and while it’s not a big deal, it does prevent the audience from connecting with the characters.
But, the movie does suffer from telling and not showing. Shirin and Lucas’s relationship never feels too distant or strained. Besides the two short scenes where she refuses to sing him a song and when they argue, the two seem perfectly content with each other.
Towards the end during a bonding montage for the family, Fredrik is there so it’s not like Shirin and Lucas had to work to get along, it was normal family bonding. It would have been more effective if it was just Shirin and Lucas that way we see their relationship blossom. It just didn’t feel like Shirin proclaiming her motherly love for Lucas at the end was earned. We’re just told she loves him and that’s that.
The Evil Next Door is not bad but it could have been so much better. Overall this is a low-tier recommendation from me.
Cast IMDB