1985 American film directed by Penelope Spheeris
The Boys Next Door is a 1985 American adventure-crime drama film about two teenage boys who leave their small town home on the day of their high school graduation and embark on a crime and murder spree.
Plot
Roy Alston (Maxwell Caulfield) and his friend Bo Richards (Charlie Sheen) are two outcasts of their high school community. Bo receives $200 as a graduation gift from his grandparents. Facing a lifetime of working blue collar factory jobs, the boys spontaneously decide to use the money to go on a vacation to Los Angeles.
During the drive to Los Angeles, Bo and Roy rob a gas station and beat the attendant (Joseph Michael Cala) with a tire iron. The next day, the boys go to a beach boardwalk, where Roy throws an empty beer bottle and it hits an elderly woman (Helen Brown) on the forehead. Three young women (Claudia Templeton, Mary Tiffany, and Marilou Conway) see this, and they chase Bo and Roy to a parking lot. The women yell at the boys and damage their car. Enraged, Roy starts the car and drives around in circles in the parking lot with the women still on the hood. After several loops, Roy throws the car into reverse, throwing one of the women from the hood off the car. After the incident, one of the women finds Bo and Roy's dog, Boner the Barbarian, and reads its ID tag, which leads to speculation of where Bo and Roy are from.
During a visit to La Brea Tar Pits, Bo expresses his wish that the world could just "go caveman" for one day, abandoning all rules and order. Roy agrees, and they spend their evening on the streets of Los Angeles.
Several additional encounters lead to more deaths, including a gay man they meet at a bar, Chris, (Paul C. Dancer), a young couple (Richard Pachorek and Lesa Lee), and an older woman Angie Baker (Patti D'Arbanville) whom Roy kills while she is having sex with Bo. Eventually the duo are tracked and found by the LAPD and chased into a shopping mall. After unsuccessfully trying to steal some guns, Bo tries to talk some sense into Roy about surrendering. Roy refuses, and he orders Bo to give him the gun so he can go out in a "blaze of glory". Bo refuses and shoots Roy when he tries to take the gun away. The police surround Bo and ask him why he killed his friend. Bo replies, "Because I had to." Bo is then arrested and led away while reporters snap photos of him.
Production
Maxwell Caulfield says it was the first film he had made since Grease 2.
I couldn't get arrested for a year and a half, then Penelope Spheeris went totally with a gut instinct on that and I am forever indebted to her for that. Unfortunately, it never really got released because New World Pictures were going under just os we finished. Working with Charlie Sheen was one of the reasons I held
up my end of the picture. He is a spunky little character, man, and it was fun riding around with him. And Patti D'Arbanville wos a doll. [2]
MPAA cuts
According to director Penelope Spheeris' DVD commentary, The Boys Next Door had to be cut and submitted to the MPAA ten times to get an R rating. Scenes that were cut or changed include:
- The scene where a gas attendant is beaten was shortened to lessen the intensity and sound effects were toned down.
- A scene depicting the murder of Chris was cut down (mostly sound effects were heavily toned down).
- A scene in which Roy shakes and kills Angie Baker (by breaking her neck) was heavily cut down, with various shots removed to lessen the intensity.
Critical reception
Time Out London called The Boys Next Door superior to Spheeris' previous work Suburbia (1984) in that it didn't try to sympathize with the two lead characters while still letting in a "glimmer of understanding into the murderers' feelings."[4] Vincent Canby, comparing the film to Over the Edge (1979) for its negative picture of a California teenager and to Badlands (1973) for its "lean and unsentimental" atmosphere, described it as a "very well made, disorienting movie about inarticulated despair and utter hopelessness."[5] He praised the performances of Caulfield, Sheen, and D'Arbanville in the film.[5]
