Neighbors (1981)    Columbia/Comedy    RT: 94 minute     Rated R (language, crude sexual humor, disturbing tone)    Director: John G. Avildsen    Screenplay: Larry Gelbart    Music: Bill Conti    Cinematography: Gerald Hirschfeld    Release date: December 18, 1981 (US)    Cast: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Cathy Moriarty, Kathryn Walker, Lauren-Marie Taylor, Tim Kazurinsky, Tino Insana.    Box Office: $29.9M (US)

Rating: **

 Neighbors is a dark comedy that starts with an interesting concept but wears out its welcome about mid-way through. Director John G. Avildsen (Rocky) makes a bold move in casting stars John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd against type. It yields mixed results.

 Earl Keese (Belushi) is a quiet, low-key suburbanite who lives at the end of a road (underneath live power lines) with his wife Enid (Walker, Slap Shot). He lives a peaceful and boring existence, spending his evenings watching old movies on TV while his wife prepares frozen waffles for dinner. One evening, new neighbors move into the vacant house next door and proceed to shatter Earl’s quiet life. Vic (Aykroyd, The Blues Brothers) is a loud, gung-ho macho man; Ramona (Moriarty, Raging Bull) is a nymphomaniac and a tease. Over the course of one night, Earl tries to convince his wife that the new neighbors are insane and everything that’s happened is their fault.

 At first, Vic and Ramona just impose themselves on their new neighbors, but it gets worse as the night progresses. To Earl, it seems like everybody around him is insane. Or is he the one who’s insane? He grows increasingly frustrated that he can’t prove the new neighbors’ wrongdoings. It escalates into suburban warfare. It’s obvious that Earl is alone in his hatred of Vic and Ramona. Even his teenage punk-rock daughter Elaine (Taylor, Friday the 13th Part 2), who has just been expelled from school, likes Vic and Ramona. How is Earl finally going to deal with the new neighbors who seem intent on destroying his life?

There’s so much wrong with Neighbors, I really don’t know where to start. The casting switch is an interesting move, but it’s of little help to a movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s a comedy that’s more unsettling than it is funny. In fact, it’s really not that funny at all.

 Personally, I’m not amused by the idea of creepy, obnoxious strangers invading somebody’s home. Vic and Ramona are both. These are clearly two very disturbed people; you’re never sure that any of their stories are true or not. Earl is such a milquetoast that he can’t bring himself to tell these people to take a hike. There might be a thriller lurking in there somewhere, but Bill Conti’s cartoonish score just underlines the movie’s uncertainty of tone. None of the characters are likable. I particularly disliked Enid. She’s a two-faced liar with no respect for her husband. At one point, Earl witnesses her feeding a steak to the neighbor’s dog. When he confronts her about it, she just shrugs it off and says that she had to feed the dog something. Other lies from Enid come out over the course of the night; one can only wonder how they stayed married so long without Earl ever realizing how awful she is. Is he really that dense?

 Belushi, in his final role, manages to pull off playing a sedate character. It would have been interesting to see where his career would have gone had he not died a few months later. Aykroyd is fine as Vic. It’s interesting to see him finally cut loose and play the wild man for a change; he’s usually a straight arrow. Moriarty is perfect as the seductive Ramona. Sexy and toxic, she tries to blackmail Earl at one point about his sending Vic’s truck into a nearby swamp.

 I think that Avildsen was a poor choice to direct Neighbors. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with the material. He doesn’t do anything with the concept. Perhaps a filmmaker like David Lynch or Roman Polanski could have done something with it. They might have a firmer grasp on how to blend comedy and weirdness. It might even work better as a short film, because at 94 minutes, it merely becomes a test of the viewer’s patience. It’s not without a few amusing moments. The neighbor’s dog gets zapped when he relieves himself against one of the electrified towers. Vic open fires at Earl with an automatic weapon when he approaches his house. That’s about it for the funny moments.

 I think audiences were expecting something in the anarchic spirit of Belushi and Aykroyd’s previous collaboration The Blues Brothers. They didn’t know how to take Neighbors which is more like an episode of The Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone. I too was taken aback when I went to see it one Saturday night in Jan. ’82 with an adult friend. I didn’t know how to react to it. I didn’t like it or hate it. I was confounded. Some people might say I don’t get it and it may be true to some extent. I get what it’s going for, but I don’t get how it misfires like it does. On the other hand, it could be there’s nothing to get. The whole affair seems pretty pointless to me.

 BTW, Neighbors holds the distinction of being the first movie I saw behind my parents’ back. It’s too bad it had to be such a downer.