The Boys Next Door — The Boys Next Door (Blu Ray)
Released in 1985 The Boys Next Door was the fourth film by US female director Penelope Spheeris- who before this directed the classic 1980’s LA punk doc The Decline Of Western Civilisation, and punk gang drama Suburbia. The film was mainly filmed in & around night time LA- with Spheeris creating a sense of building tension, and neon-soaked grimy realism that’s punctuated with moments of often prolonged & disturbing violence.
The film focuses in on two troubled small-town teens- Roy Alston( Maxell Garfield) and Bo Richards( Charlie Sheen)- the pair don’t really have any other friends accept from each other, and their often morbid pranks have them disliked by most of their peers. The film begins on the pair last day in high school- it’s a Friday, and the following Monday both are signed up to start working in the local factory- and seeing a life of bland normality spreader out before them they decide to drive a few hours to LA for some kicks, and fairly soon kick off a crime spree- which first sees them robbing & beaten a garage worker- before fairly shiftily dropping into murder.
Both the leads are great- with Garfield playing full of anger teen, who quickly morphs into a sociopath. And Sheen playing his sex-obsessed buddy- who initially follows his buddy but fairly soon starts to get second thoughts. The supporting cast is good too- with the pair’s victims coming across mostly very believable, and the two cops that are chasing them been a good blend of weathered & kind, and angry & disturbed by society's downturn. At times the pacing does feel a little off & maybe not as punchy as it could have been, with initially the pair wandering around the city aimlessly- but hang in there, and the encounters they have and the escalating tense & trouble nicely builds up. Much of the film is the soundtrack is by rock/ metal- which at times didn’t seem to fit the more troubling scenes, though I guess it’s meant to put you in the often indifferent mindset the pair have towards what there doing. The violence when it comes is often sudden and fairly intensely realistic for a teen film- we get prolonged beatings, bloody shootings, and neck-breaking attacks.
Aside from the few pacing/ focus issues early on The Boys Next Door is punchy, provocative & thought-provoking film that shows the teens of 1980’s US in a very different & unflattering light- so I can imagine if this had been a date movie at the time; it would have left both parties feeling rather uncomfortable.
Moving onto this new Blu Ray- and first off the new scan looks great, really nicely enhancing the grim twinkle of the neon, as well a good light & shade definition- which of course is needed for a largely night time shot movie. We get Blind Rage: a 24 minutes featurette which finds the always excellent Stephen Thrower discussing the film- he moves from talking about the film in general & it’s themes, the two leads, the films homosexual subtext, and how the film didn’t make the impact the studio hoped due to it been marketed as more of a plain teen fodder. Next, we have the around twenty minutes of Both Sides of the Law- this is duel interview with Maxell Garfield & Christopher McDonald- who played one of the cops trying to catch the pair- here they talk about previous acting together in Grease 2 , before going onto talk about their memories of The Boys Next Door Production. We get Tales from the End Zone- a filmed interview with Kenneth Cortland, who played the boyfriend of one of the pair's victims. We have The Psychotronic Tourist – The Boys Next Door- an around twelve-minute revisiting to the film's locations now. Give Us Your Money – a five-minute interview with the quirky street band from the film. A twenty-minute on-camera interview from 2015 with Garfield & the director which was produced for a Canadain festival showing of the film. And we get a commentary track from Garfield & director Penelope Spheeris- this I believe came from an early DVD release of the film- it’s chatty if a little sporadic track- it sees the pair talking about how they got involved with the project, on set memories, the films score & how they wanted more Aerosmith in the soundtrack. You can some interesting titbits along the way- like Nicolas Cage nearly played the Sheens part, alternative titles, and a few other things. It’s ok, but it's not the most inspired track I’ve heard. Lastly, we get an alternate opening title sequence & extended scenes, and the film's trailer.
It’s great to see The Boys Next Door getting such a classy & worthy extra laden reissue-and I can whole heartily recommend picking this up if you're interested in more though provoking/ pushing the envelope teen films of the 1980s.