Next/Door (Short)
“Next/Door” is an unnerving short film about a lonely man with a vivid imagination when it comes to the woman next door to him. We first see Otto (David Ryan Kopcych) on his couch, minding his own business. Through the thin walls of his duplex, he hears his neighbors arguing as the husband (Hector, played by Gio Castellano) is getting ready to leave for work. Otto gets up against the wall to listen to what is going on, and he hears a shot. The next thing he sees is Hector going off to work as if nothing ever happened. He goes into their house and finds Patty (Lindsey Elisabeth Cork) bleeding, and manages to get her over to his place. She asks him to call 911, and he helps her in his own way. Writer Brian Pickard and director Nathan Suher have some twisted thoughts going on in this film that could easily turn off viewers with a repellent premise, but they have a trick up their sleeve. This may have the trappings of a thriller, but it’s a clever twist on the genre that delves into dark humor that makes you think the truly disturbing material will be happening after the credits roll. Kopcych deserves a lot of credit for his performance as Otto, which commits fully to how odd he is while also making him sympathetic more than creepy. If his scenes with Cork’s Patty don’t work, the film will not work as a whole. The result is more than a little disturbing, but it’s wickedly entertaining, as well.
