7/1/21 - Girl Next (2021) - 2-/10

I see a lot of films. Some are exciting, some are weird, some are a delight, and some are just plain bad, but it is a rare defiling turd that truly gets under my skin. Girl Next gave me a headache and made me feel unclean. It was an agitating and disgusting mistake, one that I cannot unmake. In no way did it foment my appreciation for the form or foster any amount of fascination or fondness. I saw it, what it was, and markedly what it was never going to be.

The defiled nightmare focuses on a young woman who is kidnapped and must endure torturous reconditioning to make her a commodified sex slave. Its not to say that this abhorrent concept couldn’t produce entertainment (see Thriller aka Revenge of One Eye as an example), but Girl Next crumpled to the worst cravings. No amount of inane psychobabble, mysterious benefactors, corrupt cops, twisted mind altering blue gas, or necrophilia can squeeze quality into this filthy orifice; as if they would.

Dr. Misogyny Mengele Moreua meets psychedelic sex Saw. Is it horror? Simple Exploitation nonsense? Just S&Mey garbage? The filmmaker appears as a Uwe Bolle underling, which means they went to the completely wrong school of film. It blends rapey and creepy into a sadistic trash heap; the demented fever dream of a mind control kinkster.This script is so bizarre and untethered to boot. No one talks or acts like these characters and the building of plot elements & character psychologies is bonkers. It wants to be trippy and alternative, clearly, but it simply revolts. I think it wants to consider deconstructing beauty and society, but it diverts into simple grossness and the infantile. AND SO WEIRD. All the while managing to be extremely unsexy, even in the perviest of ways.

I will say that it manages to keep pushing my WTF button, which caused me to continue this vain pursuit of possible worth. As it progresses, the slow decline ramps up.Invasive and grinding musical accompaniment bores into your temples. The main characters names are “Sofia'' and “Loren”, which perhaps I am giving them too much credit for this wink at “the pursuit of female perfection, ultimate desire and its true meaning of worth & possibility in this culture, film & at large”, but even if I do, the surrounding putrescence only drowns any good intentions. Then we get some Transexual appropriation and vilification. Yay! Another tired and despised checkmark in this films categorical shittiness box. But don’t stop yet for incest is making its way out as well. Light it up on the big board for the trash fires are burning bright tonight.

Looking at the damned who wrought this decay I saw that the writer of Society did this. GN makes that film look like a reasonable and exemplary masterpiece, both of style, art, and critique. This film is a grotesque and unsavory dalliance; an example of money being thrown at the sticky wall of bad ideas and lost to the exploits of the unwell.