The House Next Door

I just finished reading Anne Rivers Siddons' The House Next Door for the first time in ten years or so.  I discovered it (along with My Girl Shirl) thanks to Stephen King's treatise on all things horror lit, Danse Macabre and thoroughly enjoyed it; while Colquitt (the best name of ever), our not-quite-trustworthy narrator, comes off as a giant snob (in an intentionally/unintentionally kinda way, if you dig me), which turned me off just the tiniest bit this go around.  Still, it's quite a gripping novel, tightly plotted, with a fascinating concept for a haunted house novel that hasn't really been duplicated since:  not only is the titular house brand new, it wasn't built over a burial ground, Indian or otherwise (see The Shining and Poltergeist), and with the exception of a miscarriage, no one even dies until the novel's final, terrifying third.

I had no idea there was a film version, originally aired on Lifetime (!) in 2006, until I stumbled upon it on Youtube this afternoon (if you're interested, maybe by the time you click here it will still be available to watch).  Not nearly as terrible as I expected; I enjoyed Lara Flynn Boyle's performance particularly, despite the fact that I was hypnotized by the size of her upper lip, which I don't recall being quite so ... mmm, enhanced?  yes, enhanced during her Twin Peaks days.  The ending is disappointing, Mark-Paul Gosselaar is easy on the eyes (as is Ms. Boyle's television husband, Colin Ferguson, the foxy guy from that Eureka TV show I never watched; I guess he was the Maytag repairman as well), and there are a few freaky scares.  Also, Stephen Amell, you know, The Arrow and all that, has a brief appearance in the first part of the film, though, sadly, he merely pushes his pregnant wife down the stairs in lieu of the novel's far more gothic/campier/eminently and queerly satisfying scene involving a naked clinch with a foxy older lawyer.

So here's some Mark-Paul just for funnzies.