The Good Neighbor

Synopsis: A pair of mischievous high school kids create the illusion of a haunting on an unsuspecting elderly neighbor while keeping his every reaction under surveillance. A series of coincidences leads to tragedy.
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Director(s): Kasra Farahani
Production: Ball & Chain Productions
 
IMDB:
6.3
Metacritic:
32
Rotten Tomatoes:
17%
NOT RATED
Year:
2016
98 min
461 Views


1

They did this

experiment in England once.

A group of people were told

that for the following...

Few weeks, hired strangers

would be interfering...

Ever-so-slightly in their

lives.

Nothing they would normally

notice, maybe a passerby...

On a bicycle or a waiter

at a restaurant.

Just little interactions

set up...

To alter the course

of their routines.

When the study was finished,

the volunteers recounted...

All the things that had

happened to them.

And some of them were

seriously affected...

By the message they were

being sent.

One woman started believing

in god.

But here's the thing.

Nothing was done to them.

Their lives had carried on

completely unchanged.

The only thing altered was

their perception.

People see what they're

looking for.

Uh... I'm gonna drum roll...

Until you finish setting

up the camera.

Make you go faster. Come on.

Okay. Uh...

You done? You done?

September 18th, 2014, terms and

conditions of the experiment.

Rule one, no physical

interference...

With the subject at any time.

Electronic and mechanical

equipment only.

Rule two, strict deadline.

Six weeks to prove hypothesis

or the project is abandoned.

Rule three, objectivity.

No trick editing, no false

narrative...

Everything that you will

witness...

Will be 100 percent real.

The theory, simply put,

with the proper execution...

It is possible to drive an

unsuspecting person...

Into believing that they are

truly being haunted.

Now in our case,

the unsuspecting person...

Is Harold Grainey, the creepy,

psycho hermit...

That lives across the street.

We have reason to believe that

something strange...

Is going on in that house.

Now the goal is to document

the entire thing.

Say, "hi, Sean."

Whoa, dude, I'm not in this.

Posterity, remember,

this is the process.

We have to document

everything...

And everything includes

shopping... right?

This is Mr. Sean Turner,

residence surveillance expert.

MIT-bound mastermind...

Voted most likely to invent

the next Facebook.

Say hi to the kids at home,

Sean.

Hi, kids.

Uh, tell them exactly what

it is we're doing here.

We are purchasing the last

of our supplies.

And supplies for...?

For the surveillance room.

Uh, surveillance headquarters.

I.E. Your bedroom.

Why don't you show everybody

what's in your basket?

Well?

Ugh... all right, fine, here,

take this.

All right, just checking the

color contrast, there we go.

Stunning quality... absolutely

stunning.

Oh, man, great idea, Sean,

spray painting indoors.

Um, why don't you give

everybody the run-down.

Well, in order to fully surveil

someone's house...

Undetected with real-time audio

and video...

You need a high-speed Internet

feed...

And you need a few stealthy

gadgets that are surprisingly...

Easy to acquire, in fact, all

of these came from Skymall.

God bless America...

Selling terrorist-grade spy

equipment on an airplane.

Exactly.

This is a motion-sensor adhesive

mini cam.

It's WIFI-enabled, you can stick

it to pretty much anything...

It's like the same thing

that the d.A. Uses...

For undercover drug busts.

This is a 2.4 GHZ mounted

thin cam.

It's controlled from a remote,

it has zoom aperatures...

And night vision capabilities.

As for the disturbances

themselves...

These are pulse-control

magnets...

Electronic wire trips,

fuse rerouters...

This big guy here

is a low-range Sonic emittor.

These are ultra-range wireless

audio bugs.

Now all together, it's enough

to control someone's lights...

And home electronics from your

fingertips.

We route all of this together

into...

Mission control.

Here, take this.

All right, so, we have three

monitors, four hard drives...

One steady vantage point to

watch us watching the subject.

And of course, our beautiful eye

in the sky...

An objective witness cam.

This set up has cost us

a lot of time...

A lot of Sean's father's

money...

Coming fully equipped with a

digital editing bay.

This is truly what's going to

make this a goddamn masterpiece.

Oh, wow, this thing

got f***ed up.

Fascinating.

How are you doing?

I'm done. It's good to go.

All right, it is 8:40 am,

Saturday, September 19th.

Our street cam is in position,

and our subject is on his way...

To his weekly grocery run...

So that means for the

next hour and a half...

That house is ours.

All right, and there he goes.

Okay, let's do this.

All right, go, go, go!

You good, dude?

Yeah.

Okay, let's go, come on.

Hey, dude! The ladder,

get the ladder.

Let's go, come on.

Dude, go! Come on.

All right, this place

is f***ing creepy.

Anthony, you want to make

yourself useful?

I am, I'm talking with you.

Hurry up!

Sweet record player, Grainey.

Huh... I guess that means

no basement cam.

Oh, sh*t!

Ugh, stupid f***ing cat.

What?

Well, all right, extreme home

makeover time.

Is it on?

Yeah, but we gotta hide it

better.

Relax, it's fine.

No, it's not, okay!

And we gotta get out of here.

I still have to plant the audio.

Hey! Relax, it's gonna work.

All right, I will work on this,

you finish up.

Hey, Sean, it's gonna be fine.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I present to you exhibit c...

The living room cam...

The camera that ultimately

captured the tragedy.

And this is clip number one,

September 19th, 2014.

The first day of the so-called

"haunting project."

The haunting project?

For lack of a better title.

Yeah, for lack of a much

better title.

All right, seriously, and you

guys can just do all that...

Stuff from this room?

It's brilliant, actually,

I mean...

I don't think that anybody

has ever done...

Anything quite like this.

Except that they have.

Okay, explain.

Um, okay, how about a million

movies and TV shows?

I mean, like scare tactics,

paranormal whatever...

It's the same sh*t.

Ashley, I... I don't think you

fully understand...

The scope of the project.

I mean, we're not punking

somebody here.

We're driving them to question

their own beliefs.

I mean, this is real, right?

Only it's not real, it's

bullshit.

No, Sean, help her out, okay?

Give her the scoop.

What you're talking about

is fiction...

What people think people

would do...

When confronted by a

supernatural presence.

Set up cameras,

call a psychic...

But would anyone actually

do that?

Short of an actual ghost

being in the house...

This is as real as it gets.

Come on, every great filmmaker

takes their own next step.

And this is my next step.

So, you're gonna torture some

poor old man...

That's the next step?

Ashley, the fact that you just

said that proves to me...

That you have no idea

who Grainey is.

Okay, well, what does that mean?

It means Harold Grainey

is an a**hole.

Yeah, he's a psychopath.

He's bat-sh*t crazy.

I mean, he beat his wife

until she left.

Yeah, and now he just sits

in the house all day...

Drinking himself to death.

Yelling at anybody who

bothers him.

What, because he doesn't let

kids in his yard...

You're gonna scare an old man

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Mark Bianculli

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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