NEXT DOOR (1994) is a dark suburban satire that introduces us to college professor Matt Coler (James Woods), his lovely wife Karen (Kate Capshaw), and their son Bucky, who have recently moved out to the suburbs. As the movie begins, Matt, Karen and even Bucky seem to be slightly obsessing over their next-door neighbors, Lenny and Marci Benedetti (Randy Quaid and Lucinda Jenney). For one, Lenny and Marci enjoy engaging in sexual intercourse on their backyard lawn furniture within view of each of the Coler family members. That’s quite awkward, but more irritatingly, Lenny insists on constantly watering his front yard near Matt’s property, which is having an extremely damaging effect on Matt and Karen’s beloved azaleas. Invited over to the Benedetti’s house for a cookout, Matt and Karen hope to get to know their neighbors a little better, as well as make a polite request of Lenny to not water the area near the boundary of their yards quite so much. We soon find out that Lenny, who works at the local meat packing plant, is loud, obnoxious, smarter than he looks, and seems to have a really big chip on his shoulder towards Matt, who he doesn’t see as being much of a man. He even tells Karen that her husband is a child, and that’s why he went into teaching rather than getting “a real job.” This upsets Karen so she tells Matt it’s time to leave, but before going, they ask Lenny not to water the part of his yard near their flowers so much. That night, Lenny moves the sprinkler even closer to Matt’s yard, which puts the final death knell in the azaleas. Very annoyed, but not wanting to go too far, Matt gets even by spraying Lenny’s outdoor patio furniture with a lot of water as a prank. Lenny doesn’t handle Matt’s prank very well, and this is where things begin getting out of hand, igniting a full-blown feud between the two men. Soon the annoyances of wet furniture and dead flowers give way to outright horror involving poisoned family pets, police investigations, attempted sexual assault, and even attempted murder!

NEXT DOOR, which is a made for Showtime original, starts out as an amusing and entertaining film involving innocent pranks between James Woods’ meek teacher and Randy Quaid’s boorish butcher. As the intensity of the feud picks up between the men, and the retaliations become more and more sinister, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor as it goes to places that aren’t funny at all. The story seems to be trying to make a statement about the class divide, the survival of the fittest, and the danger that lurks behind the picket fences and in the backyards of the innocent looking neighborhoods around us. It does that job well, as I certainly sensed the real danger that the more “civilized” man found himself in when he came up against a man who didn’t really concern himself with societal norms. I have to give a lot of credit to Randy Quaid’s performance as Lenny for making me feel that way. He is simply a force of nature, and his portrayal of the beer guzzling, opinionated, blue collar bully is excellent in its unhingement! Sadly, I’ve known quite a few people who acted way too much like Lenny for my comfort. James Woods is also excellent as the somewhat timid, intelligent college professor who keeps thinking he can talk his way out of this predicament. We know how intense James Woods can be in his best roles, but he’s quite different here as the man who tries to remain reasonable until the very end of the film when he’s finally forced to take a stand for his family’s safety. He doesn’t have the showy role here, but I can definitely identify with his character, as that would be me in this situation. Kate Capshaw and Lucinda Jenney are both appealing as the suffering wives, providing some good support and wit to the proceedings, but this show belongs to the men.

NEXT DOOR is a true horror film as far as I’m concerned, because if I found myself in this kind of situation with my own neighbor, I would consider it a nightmare. There have been a couple of times in my own life where I have found myself in situations with a neighbor that made me uncomfortable. One of those times involved our next-door neighbor driving across the boundary between their yard and ours and then taking our driveway out to the main road instead of using their own, less maintained driveway. This really bothered my wife as they had never asked if they could do it, and it had practically made a “path” that looked like a road at the boundary. Since it bothered my wife, we ended up having a polite conversation with our neighbors, they understood our concerns, and we worked out a plan that worked for all of us. A different time, however, one of our neighbors across the road left their pitbull out and it attacked our small dog in our own yard. It almost killed our dog, requiring her to have emergency surgery from our veterinarian to save her leg, and it also led to high vet bills. Our neighbors refused to discuss the situation with us, and being from West Virginia, my wife wanted us to take the situation to more extreme levels, including getting local law enforcement involved. In a situation like this, you have to truly consider how far you want to take a situation and then be prepared for the whatever events could follow. There’s a lot of unknown, and it’s pretty scary to be honest with you.

Ultimately, I would have to admit that I didn’t really enjoy NEXT DOOR very much, but I did find it fascinating. I appreciated the great performances of Woods and Quaid, but the movie made me very uncomfortable. If my discomfort was director Tony Bill’s (MY BODYGUARD, FIVE CORNERS, FLYBOYS) goal, it certainly worked. I just think that the farcical nature of the black humor at the beginning didn’t quite mesh with the dark and disturbing elements at the end. Or maybe it just took me places I wasn’t really prepared to go. Either way, it’s still an interesting relic of the 90’s made-for-premium-cable-TV movie. You never knew where those movies were headed! If you’re interested, as of this writing, it’s available for streaming on Tubi.