The Boy Next Door (2015)

*1/2 out of ****

Over the past few decades there have been a lot of stalker movies. “Fear”, “The Crush”, “Fatal Attraction, “Unlawful Entry”..... they all have the same basic theme. Person comes along who seems very nice. Hero (or heroine) gets involved in an inappropriate relationship with said person. Person turns out to be nuts. Nutty person stalks.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

“The Boy Next Door” isn't the worst of these, but it isn't very good. Jennifer Lopez is a high school teacher who is recently separated from her cheater of a husband, and a ripped, handsome 20-ish lad moves in next door. She finds herself attracted to him, and due to her lack of ability to hide it, he sees it. She is, of course, JLo, so he is attracted too. But despite the fact she knows he may be attending her school in the fall, she loses herself in a moment of weakness and ends up rolling in the hay with him.

Unfortunately, he's a psycho. He starts to obsess about her and when she tries to make it all go away he starts to terrorize her. She is borderline retarded (if she had involved the authorities at the first threat she would have been fine and her job not at risk), but instead she tries to cover everything up and then solve the problem on her own.

It's a thriller. There's just no way it can end well.

For the bubble-gummers, this is an okay film. Borderline soft-core porn for the sex scene (I guess JLo wants to flaunt it while she still has it) that will turn on the teen boys, and a good looking shirtless guy for the gals.  The “thrills” are utterly predictable but deliver if you have no imagination to see what's coming. Even the ending is right out of “how can I make this exactly what people expect” textbook.

Not utterly dreadful. But don't expect much.