Girl Next Door (2007) Synopsis & Summary

Based on the harrowing best-seller by author Jack Ketchum, director Gregory Wilson's The Girl Next Door presents a fictionalized account of the shocking ordeal endured by Sylvia Likens -- an innocent Indiana teen who was systematically tortured, raped, and murdered by a suburban divorcée and a group of neighborhood children in 1965. Shortly after losing their parents in a deadly car accident, Meg Laughlin (Blythe Auffarth) and her younger sister, Susan (Madeline Taylor), are sent to live in the Indiana home of Ruth Chandler (Blanche Baker) and her three sons, Willie (Graham Patrick Martin), Donny (Benjamin Ross Kaplan), and Ralphie (Austin Williams). Upon arriving in the quiet suburban neighborhood, Meg quickly forges a warm bond with local neighbor boy David Moran (Daniel Manche). Strangely, Ruth seems to harbor some sort of unknown grudge against her pretty young charge, and it isn't long before events in the Chandler home begin to take an ominous turn. Now, as Ruth Chandler begins her slow descent into madness, the basement of a typical middle-class home is about to become the scene of a crime that would shock and repulse an entire nation. - Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide