Spoilers Ahead.

The People Next Door is an hour long drama thriller that aired on Channel 4. It follows a couple who move into a new house when they find out they’re pregnant. Soon they start hearing arguments and fights from their next door neighbours and speculations and theories start popping up into the pregnant woman’s mind.

The People Next Door’s main theme is child abuse and neglect. Gemma, the leading lady, starts to speculate that the family  next door is neglecting their youngest child, Charlie. She puts together a lot of ‘proof’ to follow her theory and the story escalates to her and her boyfriend breaking into the house next door to uncover the truth. The boyfriend is obviously skeptical over his girlfriend’s theories. He believes that there is no child named Charlie in that house and that the neighbour’s cat is called Charlie. This one piece of dialogue makes the ending of the show much scarier and gives goosebumps to even the hardest of people.

The show is filmed through hand held cameras and phones, these were confirmed to be held by the actors themselves giving the drama a much more realistic feel. The ambiguous ending also leaves the audience wanting to know what is really happening to little Charlie.

The story shows how easily child abuse can be ignored or not treated by members of the public, i.e neighbours and by social services. It really opens the audiences’ eyes into how easily these serious subjects can be dismissed.

What did you think of The People Next Door?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding