Not every neighbour can be like the trusty, well-meaning crew for THE WATCH. No, if you’re a character in a movie, and therefore live in a movieland neighbourhood, chances are you’ll be situated next to a ripe selection of nuts and lunatics. They might rope you into exciting car-based adventures, or be a potential sex offender who looks like Rorschach from WATCHMEN. They might send you on a self improvement quest to become a mensch, or shoot you in the head after watching their tedious son film a plastic bag blowing in the breeze. Whatever specific thing a film neighbour does, it’s bound to be a pain, and here are several examples of that in action.
THE ‘BURBS (1989)
All Tom Hanks wanted was a quiet week off work. Forget the murder business and human skull collection: the main sin of the Klopeck family was ruining Hanks’ nice week off. Really, on closer inspection, this whole neighbourhood is kind of screwy. Along with the bone-stockpiling mystical guys, you’ve got a proto-John-Goodman-in-THE-BIG-LEBOWSKI army nut, a pushy geek, and a Corey Feldman, a scant few years before he dropped off the face of the earth. Basically, for a relaxed and reasonable guy like Tom Hanks, this is just the worst place in the world. If not for all the murder, the Klopecks would be better suited for Hanks than the goons he hangs out with; at least they never try to make him do stuff.
LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998)
Guy Richie’s light, frothy PULP FICTION rip-off features an ensemble of ne’er-do-wells, gangsters, dealers and scoundrels, plus the four fairly amiable guys who centre the film. Among the worst of the villainous bunch is Dog (and his gang), who live in the conveniently thin-walled flat next door to the protagonists.
In a textbook piece of plot progression, Dog loudly brags about the heist he’s planning, allowing the heroes to steal the plot as their own, getting them out of something of a pickle. In that respect, Dog’s a fairly helpful neighbour. Other than the helpful tip off, though, he’s a real pain, prone to, among other things, acts of thuggish, golf ball related aggression that surely violates any tenancy agreement you could imagine.
HIGH FIDELITY (2000)
Ian Raymond is a perfectly nice, pretty ordinary guy whose lifestyle makes him unbelievably irritating. His fairly genial nature and calmness in the face of some pretty off-the-rails John Cusack behaviour is matched by his vile hippyish ways. He insists on blaring pretentious world music, and floods the halls of his apartment building with pungent oils. He also looks almost parodically hateable: played with slimy gusto by Cusack’s pal Tim Robbins he’s a ludicrously coiffed, loose clothed would-be mystic. He looks like the smell of a dozen stupid curiosity shops – a human shaped scented candle. The fantasy sequence of Cusack and co beating him in is pure wish fulfilment; you’d hit him too, but you’d never get the grease off your hand.
THE THING (1982)
Stranded in the harsh tundra of Antarctica, the last worry on your list would be problems with neighbours. Unfortunately for the crew of Outpost 31, though, they’ve got company, in the form of some panicky Norwegians. Now, to be fair to the Norwegian scientists, it’s not their fault they found themselves right above the lair of a dormant space monster. But once they discovered the Thing, there was surely a safer way forward than to chase the Thing-husky towards the American science base whilst firing off guns and yelling in a language the Americans don’t speak. Some kind of charade, perhaps. With distance, though, the Norwegians’ actions can be excused; they were in a scary situation, and acted without thinking. The real bad neighbour is the Thing itself, whose behaviour throughout the film is simply unacceptable.
REAR WINDOW (1954)
In Alfred Hitchcock’s third best film, good old James Stewart plays a wheelchair-bound photographer who believes his neighbour has killed his wife. The ever-innovative Hitchcock frames the whole film from Stewart’s apartment, creating no small amount of tension as Stewart can only watch while his girlfriend breaks into the suspects apartment, not able even to issue a warning as the killer returns home… Now, obviously, the bad neighbour here is Jimmy Stewart, who accuses a neighbour of murder, based (initially) on a mere hunch, and was idly sat around spying on whoever before he got his sudden jolt of neighbourly spirit/vigilante madness. Had he been wrong (á la the SIMPSONS spoof), he would’ve been a mere disabled nut with a telephoto lens. And no one wants to live next to that guy.
THE WATCH is in UK cinemas now
