There is the story and there is the characters. And let me tell you, it must be the first time, weirdness has been depicted in such a funny and intriguing and honest way. I loved all those characters, who while seems similar had different agendas. I can tell you that although I was appalled by the female lead, I also was in love with her.

Quirkiness and mayhem, you can find everything that you won't find in a big budget movie. Exceptionally cast and smartly played (Scott Speedman almost playing against type) this was one of my highlights of last year. Of course this will not appeal to everyone, being about people who essentially are anything but normal. But if you have a heart for good independent movies and like your story to not be predictable (safe one obvious twist maybe), you will cherish and love this one as I do/did!

Article first published as Movie Review: Good Neighbors on Blogcritics. 'http://blogcritics.org/video/article/movie-review-good-neighbors/'

Take three freaky characters with tenuous grips on reality and stick them into an aging apartment building in a rundown neighborhood of Montreal and what do you have? Good Neighbors. You also have a film noir mystery which rivals anything the Coen brothers (Blood Simple, Fargo, No Country for Old Men) have ever done.

Written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Jacob Tierney, Good Neighbors is based on the 1982 book, Chère Voisine, by Chyrstine Brouillet. Tierney first read the book when he was in high school, and decided to take it to his producer father, Kevin Tierney, with whom he had collaborated on the comedy The Trotsky.

"Jacob told me about this book a long time ago," recalled the elder Tierney, "and I said, Jacob, I really don't want to make a movie about a serial killer. And when we finished shooting on The Trotsky, I sent him a note saying, 'I'll produce any project that you want to make.' And he told me: 'this is the one.'" The producer overcame his initial reluctance upon reading the novel. "I actually found it way funnier and way more diabolical than just being a book about a serial killer. Don't get me wrong, it's still a pretty sick little tale – but there's great fun to it in a perverse way."

Good Neighbors stars Jay Baruchel, Scott Speedman, and Emily Hampshire. It also stars three cats, Mozart, Tia Maria and Balthazar who are instrumental in moving the story along.

At first, I was annoyed at not being able to figure out who the protagonist was, but I realized as the film progressed that writer- director Tierney was doing an excellent job of giving us three characters each of whom was strange enough to either be evil or something close to it. In no time, you are suspicious of all of them.

Emily Hampshire plays Louise, a waitress in a Chinese restaurant, whose fear about the possible presence of a serial murderer in the neighborhood comes to dominate her life and the lives of those around her. She has trouble relating to people, and is the creepiest cat lover in film history.

Louise communicates her fears to her neighbor, Spenser, a disabled housebound man played by Scott Speedman. Spenser's lean, swimmer's body seems out-of-place, trapped in a wheel chair on an upper floor of the apartment building. His personality flashes back and forth between a way too friendly smile and a barely controlled rage. But, after all, he lost his wife in an auto accident, or so he says.

A new neighbor, Victor, moves in – played to geeky perfection by Jay Baruchels. Victor is as socially inept as they come, but apparently good at heart. Of course, he does tell his brother that Louise is his fiancée, before he's told her she is.

As the violence escalates on the streets outside, the three of them bond – as much as their flawed psyches allow – in an effort to come to grips with the threat of the serial killer. But, the strangeness doesn't end with the lead characters. Co-workers, policemen and other neighbors all have their quirks, and you'll find yourself being suspicious of nearly everyone at some point, at least until they too become a victim.

The twists and turns come at you rapidly in the third act and I found myself hoping for just one more when things wound down. But that wasn't because I thought anything was missing, I just didn't want the mayhem to end. Good Neighbors - murder, betrayal, cats, a few laughs and lots of blood - is available now on demand. It will open theatrically in New York on July 29 and in Los Angeles on August 5. I'd see it in a theater – being trapped in a dark room full of strangers will add to your enjoyment.

In Notre-Dame-de-Grâce a.k.a. NDG, a residential neighborhood of Montreal, a serial-killer has raped and murdered three victims. In an old apartment building, the new tenant of the fourth floor Victor (Jay Baruchel) has just arrived from China with his cat Balthazar and befriends the waitress of a Chinese restaurant Louise (Emily Hampshire) that lives on the second floor with her two beloved cats Mozart and Tia Maria and the handicap Spencer (Scott Speedman) that is in a wheelchair and lives on the first floor.

Louise is on edge with the news about the murders in her neighborhood and Victor, who is an elementary school teacher, brings her home everyday after the working period and falls in love with her. Meanwhile, their alcoholic neighbor Valérie Langlois (Anne-Marie Cadieux) hates Louise's cats and on the Christmas night, she poisons the pets.

Louise decides to revenge against Valerie simulating an attack of the serial-killer. But when she is returning home, she meets the real killer and Victor also sees him. When the police detective and the smart behavior psychologist Roland Brandt (Gary Farmer) arrive in the building for investigation, all the three neighbors become suspects.

"Good Neighbors" is a black-humor comedy with cats, neighbors and killers, in a potential cult-movie. The story is very well constructed, with tension and humor associated to great performances and weird lonely characters. The witty lines are great and I loved when Louise says "I do not know how people do that!". I agree that this film is not for everyone, but there are many unfair reviews in IMDb. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Suspeito Mora ao Lado" ("The Suspect Lives on the Next Door")

Good Neighbors (2010)

A Canadian indie thriller with spritely charm. Yup! The cast is small, the concept cute and macabre (both), and the filming and editing first rate. This is the latest installment of what is a new genre, mostly American, where a bright, lighthearted tone keeps a relatively serious theme tipped on edge the whole time.

It's almost as if the filmmakers are tired of high drama movies, from true horror films to action adventure to even the moving dramas that win the awards. It's also, though, a product of budget, and making the most of small resources. "Good Neighbors" is in many ways a perfect small movie.

Imagine the most common of situations--a small apartment building where two main characters each have an apartment. One is a disgruntled young woman with two sweet cats, her only real friends. The other is a charming handsome man in a wheelchair, with a cynical and mean interior. Then a newcomer arrives, all sweetness and kindness.

Meanwhile, a serial killer is in the neighborhood, and the woman in particular follows the story for her own self-preservation. Because it's a tightly constructed movie you suspect that one of the three has something to do with the killings, but maybe not, as a fourth apartment dweller makes her viciousness known. This is the turning point, and things get complicated in a funny/tragic way in the last quarter of the film.

As convincing as all these characters are (most of the time), there are few holes here and there. One of them is the series of crimes, and the minimal presence of the police (and rather unconvincing tough detective who looks better than he sounds for the part). In a way we're not supposed to believe or care about the crimes themselves, but in another way, the crimes become, increasingly, the whole movie. Thank goodness for the director that the Montreal police are apparently pretty relaxed about gathering evidence.

Never mind the nitpicking, however. If you like the "indie" feel of movies like "Timer" or even "Juno" (which is better overall), this one will really take you in. It's a "delight" in the best sense of that word.

I saw this film recently partly based on the other review above. I did not agree with the general thrust of that review and so I've contributed one based on my own impressions. As a whodunit the culprit was fairly obvious taking away any possibility of plot tension. The general lack of action, drama (or blood) was actually disappointing.

The film did not hit any low notes to be fair and was watchable enough but it failed to hit any high ones (for me) either.It was well professionally acted and with workmanlike direction, the scenes were well shot including the slightly unpleasant one alluded to in the previous review but the only emotional connect I felt with the film was some twinges of embarrassment at a couple of points. Sunday evening filler.

I very rarely post reviews of even the most outstanding (or, say, outrageously bad) films on IMDb, and one major reason is that (in general, i.e. usually) the films I see have either been reviewed hundreds of times or seem to have been fairly reviewed by the relatively few who've contributed their thoughts. This, however, is an exceptional case! The majority of this film's other reviews so far posted here are either negative or lukewarm, which is a tragedy for the prospective viewer, at least if she takes that to be a reason for passing this clever, immensely enjoyable gem over! I find it kind of shocking that there aren't more (at this time, there is only one other) extremely positive reviews of this film here. The only thing I can come up with to explain that fact is this: Good Neighbors is pitched at a fairly high level; the humor is subtle and often perverse, depending upon multiple layers of irony and extensive character development; the drama/suspense does NOT depend upon much mystery qua whodunit (although the movie "plays by the rules" in that it gamely keeps the viewer open-minded about the killer's identity, to this viewer the killer's identity was rather overtly apparent from the opening scenes...I second guessed myself at times, but...) but rather on the tension between what the viewer knows and what the characters don't, all of which means that less astute viewers might not notice most of what's going on in this film (several people here have called the movie 'flat', which honestly makes me inclined to call them 'dull'). I don't want to say anything about the actual plot here, but for those of you who enjoy intelligent films (e.g. Coen Brothers films, as another reviewer aptly noted) even though the proper appreciation thereof will engage more of one's mind than more escapist fare, this is pure indie treasure. For a third world country, Canada sure produces more than her share of cultural jewels...(jokes)!

It's October 1995 Montreal. There is a serial killer out on the loose. Victor (Jay Baruchel) is moving into a 4th floor walkup. His neighbours are cat lady Louise (Emily Hampshire) and wheelchair bound Spencer (Scott Speedman). Louise is working at a local Chinese restaurant where waitress Johanne (Kaniehtiio Horn) is killed one night in the streets. Victor walks Louise home from the restaurant every night. Spencer turns out to be able to walk and somebody poisons Louise's cat.

Director Jacob Tierney is able to get an offbeat eerie vibe sort of like 'Shallow Grave' except nothing so cool and thrilling. It's a serial killer thriller that lives on its atmosphere for the most part. Baruchel is quirky cute. Hampshire is a quirky adoring cat lady. Speedman is good as Spencer hiding a secret. The three of them form a very compelling trio. The movie does need more tension. It would probably help to condense the timeline. It's good creepy throughout with an underlining low key dark humor.

It's the story of three strange friendships, with a serial killer lurking in the background. Lives of the three single people, two guys and a gal, all under age 30, become intertwined over a five-month period as a result of living in close proximity in a Montreal apartment building. The film is less a whodunit than a play of mind games, as unlikely events collide, to force the three to question each others motives, then plot ways to a self-interested outcome.

The three characters are mildly interesting, though the Victor character is so neurotic, and dense to others' cues, he quickly becomes grating. I see that as a script problem. There are also a couple of significant plot holes. And the ending I find less than satisfying, as it leaves viewers wondering, and questions unanswered.

Casting is acceptable. Acting is fine given the subdued story line. Visuals trend a bit dark. Most of the plot is set indoors. "Good Neighbors" is a low-budget film, and uses a minimal cast and minimal sets. Overall, the film has a pleasantly European look and feel, with interspersed French dialogue, Canadian accents, musty interiors, and cold climate exteriors.

If you're looking for a whodunit, or an extravagant production, or a film of great thematic depth, look elsewhere. Notwithstanding weakness previously described, "Good Neighbors" excels at character drama, with a touch of low-key quirkiness; a cozy, intimate little film worth a one-time watch on a cold winter night.

I saw The Good Neighbors in Toronto. I uttered Oh My God, and Eeewww several times, covered my eyes and laughed so hard my row of seats was shaking. It's totally unexpected. Sex, Violence, Comedy,Murder- all rolled into one. Don't take your mother or your kids, but round up all of your friends and make sure you see this. It is a pisser. I was ashamed of myself for laughing but I couldn't help it. Everyone will be talking about this movie. It is funny and shocking. The audience gave it a standing ovation. It will make you re-think socializing with your neighbors. Is one of them a killer? There is an awful lot of blood. And yet, I laughed. Is something wrong with me? If so, I wasn't the only one laughing.

Film has a good beginning...and an even better middle as it slowly but surely builds up the suspense at who is or who might be the murderer rapist prowling the neighborhood at night. However the film almost comes completely crashing down by an ending that not only fails to resolve the central question at hand--but fails to resolve the basic conflict at the movie's heart. Which of the two guys will Emily Hampshire's Lucy decide to trust more??? Well the movie actually does resolve this question but only in the most blunt way possible leaving open the question that Lucy had been asking for just about the whole movie! (When the movie was over i asked one of the handful of other people in the theater if we were just supposed to assume that so and so was the killer the whole time because the movie doesn't actually provide a concrete answer to that most basic question so i started looking for clues in that ending--i think the answer is actually there but it still feels kind of unresolved to me.) Film is worth checking out tho if only for the suspense and the very nicely jaw dropping turn or two the story takes as it builds its case both for and against its three characters. It should be worth noting that none of the three major characters are exactly the nice normal people they would appear to be. Oh they may or may not be serial murdering rapists but they're also certainly not good neighbors either despite the fact that they do always seem to be there for one another. The two men in the movie--both Jay Brauchel and Scott Speedman give excellent turns here--Speedman doing a nice variation on passive aggressive jerk and Baruchel doing a nice variation on his usual nervous but overly nice good guy. Both actors are far more subtle with the turns of their various characters then you'd think from past examples of both actor's work and they both work surprisingly well together too. (The dinner party where the two are sort of forced to make conversation with one another while waiting for Lucy to arrive is very nicely played and very much filled with good underlying tension between the two) The film however really rests on Lucy's shoulders tho and the film kind of rises and sets based on what you know about her character. Emily Hampshire--an actress whom i knew absolutely nothing about beforehand does a solid job playing a very chilly character here, one that's so cold and hard to like that i feel as if that remoteness kind of rubs off on the actress playing her...so that i can't actually tell if its a very good performance by the actress or not. I suppose that kind of uncertainty and ambiguity is exactly what helps the film overall. The film really is quite watchable the whole way through tho and is nicely played--even if the ending does remain a slight question mark.

"A woman your age should always be concerned for her safety, it's a nasty world." Victor (Baruchel) has just moved to Montreal in the middle of a killing spree by a serial killer. He meets his new neighbors Louise and Spencer (Speedman) and does his best to become friends with them. Soon secrets are revealed. I will start by saying that I did enjoy this movie. The big problem with it is that it was very flat all the way through. Never got bad enough to stop watching and trying to figure out the killer made you want to keep watching till the end. The movie never really got to an exciting point where you are totally engrossed in it. I can't really say anything bad about this because I did like it, but I can't say anything good about it because it was slow and drawn out with very little action. Overall, not a bad movie so worth a watch. Not a good movie so don't rush to watch it though. I give it a B-.

Would I watch again? - I don't think so.

*Also try - Perfect Host

Although the film is not perfect by any means, and does contain so holes here that will have most scratching their heads, this is a brilliant piece of Canadian cinema considering it's track record with few to more hits recently. Parts of this film felt somewhat inspired by Kubrick's The Shining minus the hallucinatory elements as well as a Hitchockian noir element in the mix. This is a character piece that really gets into your head and keeps you guessing all the way through with the who-done-it element quite alive here. It is a bit slow paced, but that pacing works very well here, although, it may be the factor that loses most of it's audiences that happen to stumble upon it. The cast here is nearly flawless as well, and Canadian actor Jay Baruchel is great as always, but doesn't drown the rest of the cast. This makes for a nearly perfect drama thriller noir with some darkly comedic elements within.

Louise, Victor, Spencer, two dead cats, one cat hating woman, and clueless landlord. Victor likes Louise, Louise "loves" cats(almost to the extent of getting aroused by their touch), cats are all around and Spencer is a serial killer. All lives in one apartment. Victor lives above Louise while Spencer lives below her.The cat hating woman lives in the same apartment but not sure which floor.

Now, the cat hating woman (chw) poisons two of Louise's cats. Louise wants revenge. Buries the cats below chw's window. Not satisfied, decides to kill her and pin the murder on the someone namely Victor. So she gets Victors sperms (i guess she had sex or just gave him a hand job, the censors didn't show what happened) goes to chw's room kills her and inserts the sperms into her, walks away a satisfied happy woman.

Spencer is in wheelchair. Likes to be left alone. Likes to rape and kill women or maybe kill and rape them. Now he can do that cause he is just pretending to be handicapped. In the night he goes out the window down the fire escape and has fun his style.

Victor is a guy who wants to endear himself to everyone especially to Louise (he thinks there is a connection between him and her). He is sometimes stupid, sometimes annoying, mostly annoying. When the cops ask him if he knew the dead 'chw' he spills everything about the cat killing incident also tell that he was with Louise on the night of the murder in his apartment. Louise on the other hand tells the cops that she was alone at her apartment.

Victor sees Spencer from his window while Spencer was about to go on one of his joyrides. He suspects Spencer saw him too and would want to kill him, He also suspects him to have killed the 'chw'. so he tells Louise about this and makes a plan to trap him while he comes to kill him. He also calls on the cops and conveys to them of his suspicion of Spence.

There is a problem which Louise also needs to handle. On her way back. the day she killed off the 'chw', she bumped in to Spencer who was about to be on his way for his joyride, but was not sure how to act on seeing him walk, asks him to help her up the fire escape, which he does. Spencer too was put in a tight spot cause of what happened and also he saw Victor looking at him from his window. So he calls on Louise to hatch a plan to pin the murder of 'chw' on victor.

Well whatever, Louise agrees to both guys plan cause all she has to do was go to victors apartment and open the window near the fire escape go back to her room and relax. The end is like Spencer goes in to kill Victor, sees Victor waiting for him realizes Louise double crossed him goes back to kill her gets stopped by victor fights on the fire escape falls down and dies,the cop who sees Spencer climb up, from his car parked below the apt reaches to Victors aid but was too late.

All this while Louise was feeding her cat. Oh and she also tried to seduce Spencer before she killed off the 'chw'. Not sure what really happened there.

Many spoilers inside.

This review will concentrate mostly on what bothered me. There is no need for character summaries and an introduction to the movie. You can find that in the many reviews that have been written already.

Although this movie is supposed to be a black comedy of sorts, the only thing that my guest and I laughed at was the incredibly atrocious acting. There are a few scenes where the landlady and a friend act as narrators. They talk to each other, as if reading from their scripts, so that we, the audience, can be updated. This was done in such an obvious and unnecessary way.

I will now list, in explicit detail, some things that bothered me. If you can overlook all of this, you can probably enjoy the movie.

• The three main characters are equally shallow, dry and uninteresting. We have the 20-something waitress, with no visible hobbies or interests outside of her cats and she speaks in short phrases as someone who is bored and annoyed. She only ever speaks for more than 10 seconds to the one person that we all dislike, her disabled neighbour. We then have the stumbling, talkative, annoying Victor. He is essentially the poor man's Woody Allen. The problem is, Baruchel, is so typecast as this type of character that we are tired of it. He also seems to be falling for the one girl that nobody really cares about. If she gave him any signals, we missed it. What he saw in her, we'll never know. As Spencer has been analyzed so much in other reviews, I won't do that here.

• But I will talk about the evil wheelchair. Evil because it brings about two plot holes and one sloppy detail that you have to smoke some strong chronic to overlook it. The climax is not that Spencer is not really in a wheelchair, even though it should be. Seeing him get up happens well over 40 minutes before the movie is over and it's in one of the trailers. He claims that he was in a car accident a year earlier that killed his wife. We see him getting a massage in one scene with only his buttocks covered. I've never been in a car accident, never mind one where someone in the car dies. But I imagine that there is no case where that kind of impact has left one person dead and another person completely unharmed with no damage at all. So Spencer is not only scar free after such a car crash, he is in amazing shape. He also decided to live on the first (or second, if you're British) floor with no wheelchair access. We have to overlook the fact that Spencer is okay with complete dependence on others and that he never goes outside. OK, I can buy that. I cannot buy an insurance company spending tens of thousands of dollars making his beautiful apartment handicap friendly in a non-wheelchair access building. I cannot buy that Spencer somehow managed to fake being in a wheelchair. Where are these insurance companies that don't ask for x-rays showing spinal chord damage or cellular damage proof? You can lie about needing a wheelchair… your body cannot. Then, as if these two major plot holes are not enough, we have to buy a ludicrous situation. Victor feels that Spencer wants to go outside even though he never asked for it. So he builds a ramp. And by "ramp," I mean some lumber drilled onto a staircase. What's that? There is no way the landlady would accept such a dangerous and sloppy violation of building code? Wrong, she said that it was okay. I guess everyone else is the building doesn't mind half the staircase being inaccessible to them. There is a very funny scene in an episode of a Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon and Leonard try to move a massive heavy box for Penny three floors up. I think a very funny scene would be someone pushing Spencer up or helping him down. That person would have a one foot-gap between the two slats of wood for traction. I imagine the wood itself has no traction at all. The entire idea is simply horrible and will not work at all. Much like the scene itself. We already see Victor as the overly-helpful, awkward neighbour. We don't need to see him building an illegal, un-requested, dangerous ramp to prove something.

• And if it wasn't enough that a serial killer is so boring and predictable, he is also quite stupid. Armed with just a hoodie as disguise (much like Jack Bauer), he goes down a fire escape, raping and killing women in the middle of the night. He must assume that nobody he knows will ever see him walking, leaving or arriving. To add insult to injury, the final scenes revolve around the idea that Victor must be framed for all of his murders including a recent one that has police officers a little too close for comfort. Why Victor? He's the only other neighbour they know. He and his accomplice will plan a suicide where Victor claims that he was unhappy with life and some other last-minute details we don't yet know about. Imagine that conversation: Detective 1: Wow, we never even saw him as a suspect. I can't believe it was him. Detective 2: Yeah, you know how these serial killers are. They are friendly, socially connected people. One day, this guy gets depressed and decides to rape and kill a bunch of random strangers he has no connection to. I saw it coming.

I have much, much more to say. But I am at my word limit and I've made my point. If anyone can overlook what I've written so far… you might just enjoy this movie. I envy you. I wish I could like something so bad so easily.

A nasty little piece of work whose nastiness left me feeling oddly exhilarated rather than turned off.

"Good Neighbors" brings together three American characters living together in an apartment house in Quebec, and then proceeds to drop hints -- some subtle, some less so -- suggesting that all three are to a greater or lesser extent insane. An incident involving some dead cats leads to the film's most graphic and shocking scene, and also sets up the film's finale, in which two of the characters learn something unspeakably dark about each other and form an allegiance to keep their secrets safe.

"Good Neighbors" does a good job of walking that tricky line that separates dark comedy from outright unpleasantness. Its saving grace is that it doesn't strive for importance or profundity, and it doesn't apologize or rationalize the twisted psychologies of its characters. Some people, the movie suggests, reach such a point of craziness that all we can do is be morbidly fascinated by it.

This is a B movie with B movie intentions, and it largely succeeds on its own terms. Audiences will probably recognize the hunky Scott Speedman, whose million-watt smile is cleverly used to menacing effect, and Jay Baruchel, of "Tropic Thunder" fame, but all of the other actors, though quite good, were unknown to me.

Grade: A-

but since I need 10 lines to write this review, here goes...

Likable actors - notice I said actors and not characters. I thought Speedman was very good in "The Strangers" and that movie had some suspense.

This movie was lacking direction, suspense and interest. When you read the summary, you think this sounds like a great movie. When you watch the movie, you think "how did they screw this up?" I like animals, but cats got on my nerves after watching this movie. The french speaking just felt contrived and introduced to seem more artsy.

Ending - blew. No climax whatsoever. No resolution. If it was open to interpretation, I was too turned off to care.

Now can someone please take the plot for this movie and make a good suspenseful one???

This is not a bad movie. Yet it got rated pretty low. And there is a reason for that. This movie won't be for everyone. Good Neighbours is pretty conventional. The characters however are not. They are socially awkward which does not help the movie. Especially when you see these characters do things that make them even more unlikable. Talk about disturbing. My problem with it was that it was too much one sided. We people are much more complicated and it would have added some depth to the characters and the movie if they balanced the characters at least a bit.So are you wasting your time with this movie. Not immediately. I would reserve it for a rainy day or a Sunday when nothing else is on. This is not a thriller,nor is it a black comedy. It is in between. For animal lovers,there are three extremely cute cats that almost steal the show.

There are a lot of movies with dysfunctional people. "Good Neighbors" has three of them, and they aren't very fun to watch. Victor doesn't know when to stop talking, and I cringed at every line. Spencer has a weird, poorly explained sadistic streak, possibly linked to his paralyzed legs. Louise has trouble interacting with other people, but she gets along great with her cats. I was sort of reminded of "No Exit," the play where three people with incompatible personalities are trapped in hell, where they proceed to torture each other.

It's not a spoiler to say that one of them is a serial killer. The movie's summary gives that much away. I won't go into detail, but the fact that the movie suggests that one character is not the killer makes it all the more likely that that character is the killer. The red herrings are so obvious that they end up hurting the movie.

This is advertised as a black comedy, but I doubt anyone will laugh very much.

The best that can be said is that the acting is good from all three leads. It's not an amateurish movie, but also not a very good one.

Gave this film a watch, the trailer made me curious. Specially when Spencer (the paralysed guy) gets up out of his wheelchair and begins walking.

However, these are the things that didn't make this film a good one to watch:

>What's with the cats? It made the scenes with Louise and the cats very cringy to watch and it was never really explained why she loved them so much.

>Louise's attitude. What was with how impolite and rude she was? She barely smiles throughout the whole film and barely speaks a whole sentence. It was always one or two blunt words.

>Who is the murderer/rapist? They kind of make it obvious with Spencer being it but its never really explained if it is or not.

>We never understand what happens with the fact that Victor's sperm is inside the french lady who kills Louise's cats. So how after DNA testing would the evidence not point toward Victor.

>What happens to Louise? Spencer says "you do not know what kind of woman she is." But then he gets killed. So what does he mean? Yeah she did that weird thing with the french lady over her cats but is their more to her character.

>Lastly the end scene. Does no one know how to correctly end a film anymore? What is with the cat standing on the fish tank with piranha's in it? What does this have to do with anything?

Over all. The film was very drawn out and bland all the way through. Each character was awkward to watch for different reasons and nothing was properly explained. I think the film's original ideas were good, however they couldn't think of a good story line to go with it. I wouldn't watch it again.

Horror movies are generally not good. Good comedies, although hard to write well, are easier to find. I normally wouldn't recommend anybody attempt a horror comedy, but "Good Neighbours" is Jacob Tierney and Jay Baruchel's follow-up to "The Trotsky" (2009) and I couldn't pass up that potential. The result though is something that's not scary and not very funny.

"The Trotsky" mixed Russian political history with teen coming-of-age comedy and it was brilliant. "Good Neighbours" starts off with the Québec separation referendum in 1995, and frustratingly, they didn't do anything with that. I guess it was just supposed to be another check mark for as many Canadian references that you can put in a film.

Victor (Jay Baruchel) is an elementary school teacher and new to Montreal; Louise (Emily Hampshire) is a waitress and lives with her cats; Spencer (Scott Speedman) is in a wheelchair and he's handsome. "Tragically handsome," as the gossiping ladies like to say. It's a good role for Speedman who has struggled to get away from the "cute" role that "Felicity" pigeon-holed him into, so he might as well embrace his looks. Here, he's supposed to smile at the camera and look cute and evil at the same time.

They all live in the same apartment building in a neighbourhood that is being terrorized by a serial killer and rapist. This is a comedy but it's hard to figure out which parts to laugh at since rape and murder aren't all that funny. More deaths occur and more reasons to kill other people become apparent. Our three heroes / nonsensical characters each become potential suspects and potential serial killers in the making.

We spent a long time being introduced to all of the characters which did provide for an interesting atmosphere but not an entertaining one. It didn't lead to anywhere fruitful. The plot which then became painfully apparent involved lots of blood, sex and sex jokes. Exactly the types of things you would expect to find in an unintentionally-funny horror flick. But this is a horror which is supposed to be funny. It was kind of funny but too stupid to be scary and too stupid to be enjoyable enough.

The movie starts out slow. In fact I was ready to turn it off a few times and watch "Flying Nun" reruns. But it is just attempting to establish character, at least the character we normally see without secrets. The "action" takes place in an apartment building with 3 English speaking people living in French Canada. Louise (Emily Hampshire) lives alone with 2 cats with which she has bonded. The rest of her neighbors loathe her cats. She works at a local Chinese restaurant within walking distance.

Spencer (Scott Speedman) is a large blond confined to a wheel chair. We later find out he was married and his wife died in the same wreak that confined him to said chair. He is considered a hunk by the older women in the building and they suspect that he and Louise would one day get together. He loves fish (live or cooked). He has anger management issues which sometimes slip out. While he is in a wheel chair, his legs are normal as there appears to be no reason for him to be in the wheel chair.

Victor (Jay Baruchel) is the new guy in the building. He is a bit spastic and is irritating with his constant chatter. He develops a love for Emily which is not returned.

There is a serial killer in the city and Louise is obsessed with the thought as her friend at the cafe was a recent victim. The victim had a date that night with a large blond guy named "Roland." A large guy named "Roland" is also conducting the investigation. The French Canadian woman who lives in the building is shown in a bad light and provides some inner conflict.

As events unfolded and made the characters more interesting and improbable, I found myself still waiting for things to happen. Magnolia generally does the feel good Indie films with a fitting lame acoustical sound track. In this film they were clueless about a decent sound track, something that would have added to the film. I would not call this a "noir" film or a "thriller" as does the DVD hype. It is an indie with typical quirky characters, a movie heavy on building characters and light on action. Might make for a rental if you really love Indie films and cats.

F-bomb, sex, nudity. The rating claims "strong violence and graphic nudity" which are perhaps over statements. There is one violent scene without a close up and one weird nude scene with Emily Hampshire in the dark.

Loved the way this story is put together, little miniature caricature studies of people you live near/around/with....

Its kind of a mystery, and like any mystery it would be nice if the ending was a bit of an 'ah ha ' moment... wasn't for me hence 7 of 10.

Actually really impressed by Speedman, who knew he might be an actor?

State Farm does NOT endorse this rear window…but, it's still there.

Wildly independent, Good Neighbours tries to pull off Hitchcock and as a knock-off, it succeeds. Just don't expect the Master's return to the Neighbourhood.

English/French/Canadians share an apartment building while a serial killer/rapist is on the loose. Though this may seem incidental, it all fits in with cat lovers, cat haters and neighbours scheme to have some dark & comedic moments.

Initially, the movie begs us to determine who the bad guy is, but it's fairly obvious over a bit of time. Once established, more plot points are introduced and the games are afoul.

It's a fun little movie to watch. Nothing over the top, nothing groundbreaking. But, for some Hitchcockian flashbacks, it's a descent voyage. Must be a cat lover, though. If you rent here, please respect the pussy.

***

Final thoughts: The description and location of the movie (on the Shudder service) made this seem like a wonderful horror movie. I wouldn't go that far, but it's still worth checking out for some lighter fare.

I'm not sure how much of the movie you have to watch before being allowed to review. I won't lie, 30 minutes was all I could stand. I just couldn't take much more after this. I thought, well, that's 30 minutes of my life I will never get back. I watched this movie due to the good reviews that were posted here. I can only guess that, seeing they make way too much of a deal about the vote in Canada, that Canadians would probably love it. So, for those who reside on the other side of the world, we just didn't care about this part of the movie. Sorry. Jay Baruchel has to be the most annoying actor ever. That voice is just like listening to finger nails being dragged down a chalk board. He totally destroyed The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Completely ruined it. His whole fumbling, bumbling schtick has been done to death and by better actors. He needs a new angle. So in conclusion, I wanted to poke my own eyes out with a fork rather than put up with more than 30 minutes of this woeful film. Watch at your own peril.

Good Neighbours follows three people who live in the same apartment building in Montreal over the course of Winter in 1995. Spencer (Scott Speedman) is a wheelchair bound introvert who spends all of his time in his flat on the first floor; Victor (Jay Baruchel) who has recently moved to the area since returning from China; and finally Louise (Emily Hampshire), a waitress at a local restaurant who spends most of her time either socialising with her pet cats (Tia Maria and Mozart) or reading up on the local serial killer who is running riot near to where they live.

Each of them is flawed in their own unique way so much so that I found myself asking the question why are any of them friends at all? Only the nervous Victor seems to be capable of something resembling social skills despite the uncanny ability to put his foot in everything time and time again and yet on several occasions they all sit down to dinner together when it's extremely obvious that they would be somewhere else.

The film took such a long time to get going and was so slow paced to begin with that I began to lose interest rather quickly. And although it did begin to pick up just past the hour mark I was only kept partially intrigued to see how the characters were going to play out once they had each laid their cards on the table. The acting was average, nothing shockingly bad but nothing exceptional either, with Hampshire the best of the bunch in her portrayal of the disturbingly cat obsessed Louise.

The most shocking moment in the film for me came after I finished watching it and realised that this was supposed to be part comedy albeit black humour. That small titbit of information only made itself obvious to me after I started to research it which gives you some indication of how funny I felt Good Neighbours to be. If that cryptic message was too much for you let me spell it out- it wasn't funny... not in the slightest. Black comedies do tend to be more subjective than other comedies but I'm normally a fan quick to laugh at the disturbing and down right wrong. So (except for one line I've just remembered after some strenuous thinking) I had on my poker face.

Whoever made the trailer for this should be out of a job. Is a spoiler considered to be a spoiler if it's included in the trailer? If you're ever planning to watch this then I recommend giving the trailer a miss as it destroys what little intrigue there is supposed to be for one of the years most obvious and predictable plots. I'm usually quite good at seeing where a film is going but for Good Neighbours even if you've only got your head half screwed on I doubt the twists and turns will remain hidden from you for long.

I have the feeling that if you are able to get into this film near the beginning then there is a reasonable chance that enjoyment is there to be had but I found it so hard to do this that a potentially decent storyline has gone to waste and a sense of disappointment surrounded me once the film had finished. Not watching the trailer might also make for slightly better viewing. If you see it on the TV one day then maybe you should watch it.