Mark Reviews Movies: THE EVIL NEXT DOOR

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 24, 2021

A setting and the atmosphere within that setting go a long way in a horror movie. Take The Evil Next Door, which tells the story of a ghost or some other malevolent spirit haunting a home. That's neither new nor unique, but novelty doesn't matter to the writing/directing team of Tord Danielsson and Oskar Mellander. They know it's how such familiar material is told that actually matters.

Thus, this film (the feature debut for both filmmakers) tells a simple story, with simple but relatable characters, and creates an air of foreboding and menace at every possible turn. Sometimes, that's all a horror movie needs, and in this case, it's definitely enough.

In what's basically formula now, an opening sequence establishes the stakes without establishing much or giving away any information. A mother chases after her screaming child, being dragged by an unseen presence through a small, two-story home. She's stopped at a door, locked and impenetrable, as the unknown someone or something blocks her child's rescue. When the door finally opens, the room is empty. There is no sign of the person or thing that took the kid and, more importantly, no sign of the child, either.

At some later time, Shirin (Dilan Gwyn) is on her way to look at a new house. Her boyfriend Fredrik (Linus Wahlgren), a widower, wants to start a new life and a new family in this new house and a new town with Shirin and his son Lucas (Eddie Eriksson Dominguez). There are few things they note as the family arrives at the house. It's a duplex, with one half of the building in perfect condition and the other in complete, abandoned disrepair. Their side is just right for them, with the sun shining through the windows of the open-space design and plenty of rooms down the narrow hallway upstairs.

There's one thing we note, wholly unknown to the characters, as soon as the family car pulls into the driveway. This duplex is the same one, seen as the mother cries in terror at the sudden and mysterious disappearance of her child, from the prologue. The real estate agent doesn't mention the kid's disappearance, the subsequent break-up of the family, or the mother's slide into despair, even though it's the talk of the town and, likely, something prospective buyers might want to know. That's another piece of formula: Any information that might prevent a horror story from starting cannot be revealed to the characters within the story until it's just too late for them to do anything about it.

We accept it, though, because, well, we have to. Here, we also get a sad little story within the bigger story—about Fredrik trying to keep the memory of his son's mother alive, about Lucas still grieving and not quite understanding death as a child does, about Shirin loving Fredrik and Lucas while knowing that she can't and not wanting to replace a dead wife and mother. This isn't deep or explored with any kind of complexity, of course, but those feelings of grief and uncertainty and insecurity are there.

It's the feelings, after all, that Danielsson and Mellander are chasing. They become sinister pretty quickly.

Fredrik takes a new job, which means he'll be gone at night for several weeks. Shirin will have to be Lucas' primary caretaker for this stretch of time, and before she can even get her bearings in this new town, Lucas has apparently made a new friend. It's a child, he insists, who lives in the home next door.

This, of course, is impossible, and while Shirin likely suspects Lucas' new pal is simply a friend of the imaginary variety, we know the score—or, at least, we think we do. Is it the ghost of the child who disappeared? Is it the evil person or spirit who took the kid from the prologue? At least we know that a pale-and-hollow-faced monster, which appears with clawed hands and in a hunched-over-backwards position that can't be comfortable, is something to fear. The filmmakers make sure we do fear it, by keeping its appearances limited and its revealings delayed by deep, unnaturally focused shadows.

Indeed, the whole house, as specifically lit (or, better, not lit) by cinematographer Henrik Johansson, seems to be made up of dim swathes and pockets of impenetrable shadow. This is what matters the most for this film. The house is so dreary and dreadful that the color palette almost seems monochromatic—as if color isn't just drained from the interior, but simply cannot exist in this space.

That characteristic is even more intense in the connecting house, from where the evil is coming, and within the long stretch of attic that connects the family home with the origin of this supernatural menace. Speaking of long stretches of open space, it's impressive how much ominous mileage the filmmakers get out of the narrow hallway on the home's second floor.

The setting, atmosphere, and mechanics here aren't implemented for cheap and easy jump-scares. There are a couple, which, notably, don't just come out of nowhere, since Danielsson and Mellander take a step or two to establish a rationale for them—such as the clawed hand appearing before the monster's empty face or a camera that reveals someone/something that couldn't be in the room. The eerie aura of this place is the point. The simple story and sympathetic characters of The Evil Next Door are just enough of an excuse for the filmmakers to show off how well they can and do establish a mood of overwhelming dread.

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