Hello there, Phantom Phans! I’m getting the Late Nite Landfill off to a later start than usual. I had planned to have this weekend’s first entry up no later than yesterday (Friday),
but encountered unforseen delays. Those delays turned out to be fortunate, as I woke up this morning to learn that Channel 7 pulled a switcheroo for tonight and is running “The House Next Door” instead of the originally scheduled “P.U.N.K.S.” Which is really too bad because I had a great post prepared on how I think Henry Winkler is one of the most underrated comic talents of all time. Perhaps another time...
In the meantime, back to the film at hand. “The House Next Door” looks like a strange hybrid between a Lifetime-style “family crisis” movie and a routine slasher flick. It’s title is certainly evocative of both – there actually IS a Lifetime movie of the same title with Lara Flynn Boyle and Mark Paul Gosselaar, and countless horror films with the word “House” in the title. The premise is as old as the hills: a recently married couple discover disturbing, maybe even murderous secrets about their new neighbors.
Over at www.moviescreenshots.blogspot.com you can see photos of the whole movie. Which is probably quicker and less painful than actually watching the film itself.
Based on the photos, there seems to be an awful lot of goofy smiling going on in this movie. That and Sean Young not looking so much like the Sean Young you remember (amazing, because I don’t think she ever had plastic surgery). whereas Theresa Russell just looks like an older version of herself. Which isn’t necessarily to say Sean Young looks bad; just that I whizzed by her photo before realizing it was her. But those are just the still photos – in the trailer she looks like herself again. Go figure.
Lead actress A.J. Cook was about 23, 24 years old when she made this film but looks like a 15-year old high school student, not a newlywed. Which is probably the reason some real veterans were cast in support. A balanced cast can often mean everything when all you’ve got is an overdone premise and a mediocre script. In this case, it appears the weight of the film is carried by the seasoned actors. Among them are two women known for playing both victims and femme fatales.
Theresa Russell has long been a favorite of the Phantom. Few actresses of the last 25 years combine the sultry with the dangerous as well as Russell, whose “Black Widow”
role is a veritable master class on how to play a viperous vixen.
Sean Young is probably better known for things that did (and didn’t) happen to her while off the movie set. There are three rather infamous examples. The first being the time she crashed the set of ”Batman” and confronted Tim Burton and Michael Keaton while wearing a Catwoman costume, a failed attempt to be cast in the sequel (as part of her doomed-to-failure effort she also showed up on a TV talk show wearing the same outfit). Another example was her tumultuous relationship with actor James Woods and the bizarre (and alleged) behavior he accused her of. Last but not least was her recent outburst at the Director’s Guild awards. She followed up this sad incident up by checking herself into rehab, admitting to a long battle with alcoholism.
I’ve always thought she was an underrated talent, with a unique, unconventional beauty. In a world where pretty actresses are often cookie-cutter, one after another coming off the assembly line, she’s been a refreshing presence in the last 25 years or so of movies she's appeared in. And not just in thrillers – she has a knack for comedy, too as no less an authority than comedian-director Carl Reiner recently attested. Perhaps Young would have fared better in the 1940s and 1950s, when actresses with distinct looks and personalities often got as many roles as the vivacious beauty queens. Both she and Russell probably would have been much-employed during film noir’s 1940s through mid ‘50s heyday.
Rounding out the veterans are Frederick Forrest and James Russo. Forrest won a best supporting Oscar for “The Rose,” a movie whose Bette Midler title song holds a special place with other movie songs that are among the Phantom’s most-hated of all time. Others include Celine Dione’s “My Heart Will Go On” from “Ttanic,” Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” from “The Bodyguard”
and Bette Midler’s other anguish-inducing anthem, “The Wind Beneath My Wings” from “Beaches.” Thank goodness the great punk-pop band A New Found Glory exists to remake these dreadful songs into super-fast sing-alongs on their highly recommended “From the Screen to Your Stereo” releases. As for James Russo, he is another of those character actors who always seems to be working, with a long list of credits on view at his imdb.com listing, most notably ”Donnie Brasco.”
The movie is directed by John Travolta’s actor-writer-producer-director brother Joey. Like many siblings-of-the-more-famous, Joey has often been the butt of many jokes, but I actually have a lot of respect for him due to his work with autistic actors, which you can read about here.
View the trailer here:
Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35 PM on Saturday, April 12th... if you dare!
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