I read Anne Rivers Siddons's excellent book some years ago. Stephen King, in his essay DANSE MACABRE, refers to the novel as one of the best haunted house stories ever written, and he is correct. Unfortunately, in translation from the printed page to the small screen, quite a bit is lost.The basic plot remains intact, happily: a young, hot-shot architect (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) builds a new, contemporary house on a vacant lot next door to the Kennedys, Col and her husband Walker, who frame the story and serve as the narrators (Here is where the inexplicable differences begin: in the novel, Col was Colquitt and Walker was Walter, and the book is told in first-person by Colquitt). During the course of the next year and a half or so, three couples occupy the house, and each of them suffers terrible tragedy, leading Col to the conclusion that there is something malevolent about the house.She's right, but some of the terror has been diluted by two things: the choice to make this a television movie, and the choice to update it by nearly thirty years (the novel was published in 1978). Had it been made as a feature film set in the Atlanta suburb of the original late-Seventies novel, perhaps they could have captured the indescribable creepiness of the book.The cast isn't much help, either. Lara Flynn Boyle leads the proceedings as Col, but she seems miscast (To be fair to Boyle, Siddons never actually gives a physical description of Colquitt in the novel, but Boyle is not what I myself pictured), and worse, she underplays the role so severely that she often appears comatose. And the massive amounts of collagen plumping up her lips on one side don't help matters any either; in some scenes her mouth is such a distraction it is easy to miss what is going on. Still, there are moments when her dreamy, almost-hypnotized stare does send a chill through you as you realize what the house next door might be doing to her, never mind the neighbors. And Colin Ferguson is just about right as her husband; he wisely plays his role at the same emotional level so as not to upstage her or make Walker seem foolish.Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is not worth talking about. In the novel, the effect of the malevolent house was felt by eight of the neighbors on the street, and each, especially the women, reacted in his/her own way. The supporting cast in this telefilm is so homogeneous that unless Boyle says their names it is hard to tell them apart. A pity, because Siddons described them quite vividly.Mark-Paul Gosselaar as the architect was probably cast to pull in the young girls, but he is probably the worst choice of all. For starters, he still can't act. He couldn't as a kid on "Saved by the Bell;" he couldn't on "NYPD Blue;" and he still can't. All he can do is pose and look pretty. Which he does very well, except that the role does not call for it. The architect wasn't unattractive in the novel, but he certainly wasn't a pretty boy like Gosselaar.I can't say I hated it. I loved the novel, and there's still enough of the novel left to make this worth sitting through on a rainy afternoon if you've nothing better to do. But I'd sooner recommend reading the novel; you'll get all the shivers that way, and you won't think Stephen King has terrible taste in horror stories.

The House Next Door is set in a very nice suburban area in the US, loving couple Col (Lara Flynn Boyle) & Walker (Colin Ferguson) live in a nice residential street & have a seemingly perfect life. However their quiet & tranquil lifestyle is abruptly disturbed when a new house is built next to their's, a very modern house that looks very impressive both outside & in designed by novice architect Kim (Mark-Paul Gosselaar). Once the house is built a young couple named Pie (Charlotte Sulivan) & Buddy Harrelson (Stephen Amell) move in, at first they seem the perfect couple happily in love but Buddy unexpectedly pushes Pie down the stairs causing her to lose their unborn baby. The next couple that buy the house & move in also suffer tragic events, watching this take place from next door Col becomes convinced that the house is evil & decides to do something about it before more lives are ruined & lost...This Canadian & American co-production was directed by Jeff Woolnough & was based on the novel by Anne Rivers Siddons published almost thirty years prior & by all accounts is far superior to this tame made for telly supernatural drama. The House Next Door is so forgettable, plain & dull that it fails to make any sort of lasting impact. The script is fairly slow going although as far as haunted house horror flicks go does have the slightly unusual angle of being told from the point of view of the neighbour's rather than the inhabitants of the evil house itself which in all honestly doesn't amount to much anyway. The reasons behind the haunted house are never explained beyond vague guesswork & the events inside the house aren't that frightening anyway, I mean some guy shouting at his wife? Isn't that called an argument? Doesn't everyone have them from time to time? Why the stupid cow decides to pull a gun out & shoot the guy I don't know, then strange phone-calls are hardly a reason to commit suicide are they? I don't know, The House Next Door just feels like a really tame made for telly drama with a hint of supernatural thrown in & plays it safe. There are no major surprises or twist's, the character's are dull & as a whole the film is forgettable. Also what is up with the names in this? I mean you have men called Walker, Buddy & Kim while women called Col & Pie.The film looks alright, it's reasonably well made although very static & dull to look at. The house itself isn't imposing enough & looks too modern to be haunted or generate any sort of suspense or atmosphere. The gore count is zero with no blood spilt at all.Filmed in Toronto in Canada actress Lara Flynn-Boyle has noticeable Botox filled lips, it's not a very pretty sight. The acting is alright, no-one stands out as great though.The House Next Door is a throughly tame & forgettable made for telly supernatural drama that didn't do anything for me, it's far too slow & dull for me to be able to recommend it. There are far better haunted house horror flicks than this so don't waste your time.

Oh, it's the movie - I thought I waited too long to take out the dog... I can't believe I watched the whole thing. I guess I was optimistically anticipating that it was going to get better. Horribly disjointed dialog, pathetic acting, and totally improbable events. Like Toby's mom hanging herself in the time it takes Col to walk upstairs and back down in a room with a 24' ceiling and no chairs, counters or anything around her motionlessly suspended body that she could have possibly used to climb on to do herself in. The little girl that played the daughter of the last family was the best actor in the whole movie, and the puppy of the first couple was a close second. The basic storyline has potential and with a good script and director could be a seriously creepy flick, but this version sadly is not it. I get more scared when I open my electric bill every month.

When I heard that this movie was coming out the night before Halloween, I was very excited. When I found out that it was a book, written in 1978, I had to read it before seeing the movie. I'm sure the movie would have been much different to me if I had not read the book. The writers actually did a good job of staying true to the main plot of the book, with minor differences, naturally. I think the thing that disappointed me the most about the movie was Boyle playing the role of Col. I'm not a big fan of Boyle, and it seems that no matter what the mood during the movie, she's always trying to use her over-plumped lips, and darkly makeup-ed eyes to make herself seem super sexy. Indeed, I think that the movie held true to the genuine creepiness of the house. My favorite subplot was the Sheehan family (which is so weird b/c the son was killed in Iraq and in current events there is Casey Sheehan whose mother went on a huge anti-Iraq tirade). In the book, obviously the war was not Iraq, but rather, Vietnam, and when the house turns on that video of the son in the helicopter, I was truly creeped out. Overall, I was impressed with the movie, in that it followed the book very well.