DVD Review: “The New Neighbors” (Redux)

What do you do if you're a hard rock legend in an emo world? If you're Eddie Van Halen, you start funding porn movies. We are now able to reveal that EVH himself was the financier of the excellent "The New Neighbors", the 20-minute trailer of which we previewed way back in February. This week the full movie arrives and features not only a juicy cast but also—horrors!—a plot.

In fact, there has not been a recent porn movie that so clearly makes its appeal to people over 40 as this one, even though it's about succubi.

Read our review of "The New Neighbors" after the jump.

- GP

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The New Neighbors

Studio: SllabWurks

Director: Frank Castle

Cast: Linda Roberts, Mike Horner, Randy Spears, Nikki Hunter, Hailey Paige, Tyla Wynn, Barbara Summer, Brooke, Steven St. Croix, Jack Venice

Review by Gram Ponante

The nuclear family of Martin Brody (Mike Horner, who looks a little like "Jaws"-era Roy Scheider, from whose character the name got lifted) is disrupted and titillated when the Infernatos move in across the street. Buttoned-down Brody has a wife (Linda Roberts), who is complacent as Suzanne Pleshette, and two (legal) teenagers (Jack Venice and Hailey Paige), who need something to rock them out out of their boring Valley routine.

(Luckily the two kids are merely step-siblings, shunting away a boxcar of moral outrage if a chapter-hopping viewer sees what the two get up to later in the movie.)

The casting is excellent. The Brody kids actually pass for non-porn stars (Hailey Paige looks wholesome by porn standards), especially as compared to the new neighbors, who look like the standard menacing swinger couple. Randy Spears as Mr. Infernato is oily and malevolent, and there is no mistaking that his wife, Nikki Hunter, is ready for business.

The first sex scene features Hunter's Mrs. Robinson turn on the Brody boy. It is only when we see his tats and shaved pubes that we remember he's a porn dude.

Eventually the movie devolves into orgies and mayhem. Mrs. Infernato makes a woman out of Mrs. Brody, Martin has his sensibilities upended by his daughter's friend (Tyla Wynn), Hailey Paige proves that she's not that innocent.

What is refreshing about "The New Neighbors" is that the sexual complacency of the middle-aged Brodys is paired with Satanism and still it seems more believable than most porn. ("Believable" is relative, of course - everyone still pulls out and comes on everyone else. Some things can't change.) It's also a pleasure to see the likes of Spears and Horner work, both of whom take care not to chew too much scenery in roles that require acting.

Neighborhood sexual politics, the menace of a card game, and a more realistic approach to taboos is combined with filmmaking that is competent and a story that, while providing all the bells and whistles of a porn movie, still surprises.

A demon hunter arrives, as does a comely nun (Barbara Summer on the boxcover), and the movie resolves with a twist. Know what else? The family is preserved and strengthened by the experience. "The Lion King" wasn't even able to pull that off without Dad dying.

It is an open secret that this movie was bankrolled by Eddie Van Halen. In that EVH was recently outed by "Sacred Sin" director Michael Ninn (Van Halen contributed two songs to "Sin" and also executive-produced that movie), it seems like a sin of omission not to mention that "Neighbors" came first and that it has a beginning, middle, and end, sequel potential, and a "Pirates"-like shot at being credibly edited for softer cable versions and rental.

Find a store and pick up this movie. Who knows, you might even watch it with your parents and clergy member.

· "The New Neighbors" (gallery @ xPeeps.com)

Previously: Porn Valley Dispatch Archive