The Boy Next Door Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Guzman, John Corbett. Directed by Rob Cohen. Rated R. Opens Friday.
Pity poor Hot Divorcée. Even though she looks like Jennifer Lopez, she’s still lonely and awkward and sexually frustrated, moping around her tastefully appointed house in sensible but form-fitting outfits. Thanks to the advice of Sassy Best Friend, she’s tried dating, but it just isn’t working out. She’s even considering giving Philandering Husband a second chance, since they haven’t gotten around to signing those divorce papers. But then her neighbor, Creepy Old Guy, introduces his great-nephew, Barely Legal Beefcake, and before she knows it, she’s given in to one night of carnal passion, and Barely Legal Beefcake has turned into Crazy Stalker. What’s this poor lady to do?
Make lots of ill-advised decisions, obviously, since she clearly has never seen Fatal Attraction or one of its many imitators. Sadly, the makers of The Boy Next Door have apparently seen all of those movies, and they put together a laughably ridiculous facsimile, with painfully obvious plot twists and moronic characters. Boy is so terrible that it’s actually quite funny at times, thanks especially to Ryan Guzman’s intensely wooden performance as the title character (he acts primarily with his abs). The rest of the actors don’t fare much better (Lopez seems incapable of convincingly delivering the line “Oh my God!”), not that the dialogue from writer Barbara Curry is worthy of decent acting. By the time the finale arrives, complete with eye-gouging-by-EpiPen, Boy seems destined to become a camp classic of some kind.
