FANTASIA FEST 2022: ‘Next Door’

Next Door captures an absurd and unlucky morning-after when Chan-woo wakes up to the dead body of his annoying neighbor. Directed and written by Yeom Ji-ho, Next Door is dark, sometimes humorous, and takes Murphy’s Law to the extreme.

You see, Chan-woo (Oh Dong-min) is a bit of a failure. He’s been trying to enlist in the police academy for five years and hasn’t been able to accomplish, well, anything. When his friend offers to pay the administrative fees for his most recent application for the police academy if Chan-woo goes out to drink with him, he can’t really say no.

Soju, soju, and more soju lead Chan-woo to wake up covered in bruises, with an epic hangover and a blank space where his memories of the night before should be. Then he notices that he’s not in his apartment, and a body is lying in the middle of a pool of blood on the floor. After realizing that he’s in the home of the noisy neighbors, he finds himself trapped in their apartment. With insistent preachers and a landlady keeping in the apartment, he uses all the investigative skills he’s acquired through many failed exams to unravel the whodunnit.

Writer-director Yeom is able to craft a detailed and entertaining story that twists and turns, and he does so by focusing on primarily one location and only a handful of actors. A debut feature, Yeom manages to show the audience every painstaking detail of Chan-woo’s panic and exploration of the apartment without using heavy exposition as a crutch. In fact, by centering the audience’s knowledge around only what Chan-woo knows, the film’s mystery unfolds seamlessly with some surprises along the way that keep you invested.

Next Door has fairly serious moments, aided by a score and tense atmosphere, but it holds on tight to its darkly humorous core. By keeping that front and center, the audience is able to stick with the frantic pace that Chan-woo pushes as he questions his sanity and whether or not he killed the neighbor – or if something larger is at play.

As Chan-woo, Oh Dong-min is the perfect character to both laugh at and feel bad for as his already shitty life somehow just gets worse. Without enough money to pay an application fee and no real future unless he can file his application to the police academy before time runs out, actor Oh is a balance of ignorance and desperation that works exceptionally well for the film.

Chan-woo is a man with a lot on his mind, not many prospects, and has somehow wandered into the worst crime scene imaginable. Completely unequipped to handle the pressure, Oh’s reactions are not only funny in a black comedy way but also relatable. I mean, none of us would be as stoic as John Wick at the sight of a dead body or the prospect that we might have done it.

Next Door is a whole lot of tense fun and works from start to finish. While it offers up darkly comedic elements that almost delve into a comedy of errors, it also hits the thriller side of things well. In a tight space without fear of showcasing injuries and confusion alike, Next Door is a home run debut for Yeom Ji-ho and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Next Door screened as a part of the Fantasia International Film Festival 2022.