‘The Neighbour’ (2016) - Marcus Dunstan.

An aesthetic Super-8 shot intro descends us with doomy dispatch into writer/director, Marcus Dunstan’s violent suburban shocker 'The Neighbour'. The increasingly murky, expressly voyeuristic proclivities of married couple, Rosie (Alex ‘Starry Eyes’ Esso) & John (Josh ‘The Punisher’ Stewart) takes them into to the heart of someone else's darkness. Our handsome-looking protagonists sinisterly discover that an ill-judged curiosity into a neighbour’s nefarious business will most certainly waylay more than a domestic feline!

John, ex-military Stoic is a reluctant dope runner for his amusingly archetypal B-Movie uncle, Neil (Skipp Sudduth). To add insult to ignominy, his long-cherished plans of secretly absconding to a Mexican sea-fronted idyll becomes royally snafued by his wife’s errant interest in the palpably nefarious activities of furtive neighbour Troy (Bill Engvall).

With all the character’s so lightly sketched, ‘The Neighbour’ plays out sharply like an hard-boiled, lightning-paced, flint-edged Graphic novel. Each rapid altercation dazedly begetting a no less breakneck chase through the labyrinthine, criminal underworld Rose & Tom have become so violently enmeshed in! This garrotte-tight, steel-thewed thriller is a grim, amphetamine-dosed ‘Blood Simple’ wherein myriad, morally dubious characters suddenly go at one another’s swarthy throat’s like rabid, blood-maddened pit bulls! While I wasn’t especially endeared to them, the muscular film’s savage, hate-fuelled impetus maintained my interest throughout. Musical rude mood maker, Charlie Clouser’s darkly brooding electronic score is a menacingly sinuous delight!