David Greene's obscure THE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR is out to prove that a parent, in particular a father working eight-hours and then having a nightcap and sleeping pill to fall asleep, is just the same as a wayward teenager dropping acid...
The latter happens quickly as underrated starlet Deborah Winters, after watching brother Stephen McHattie's hippie band rehearsing, winds up in her own closet, seeing God and thus, freaking out...
She later attempts spitefully french-kissing dad Eli Wallach, married to chain-smoking Julie Christie, both desperately trying to figure out what makes their drug-fueled, discontented daughter tick...
Ironically, Winters would wind up in another LSD-centered cult film, BLUE SUNSHINE, and she always gives an intense performance, visually epitomizing the cute blonde California girl who's miserably unglued, in this case adding much-needed suspense, like anything can happen at any time...
And while both her bad acid trip and idealistic tantrums literally peak too soon for an effectively cohesive melodrama of a clashing suburban clan to follow, NEXT DOOR is a semi-worthwhile compromise between an anti-drug exploitation and counter-culture propaganda for the young people themselves...
That is, despite the youth-rebel cliches... that Winters successfully rises above despite a somewhat mundane television-style script... which fits since she had co-starred in a 1968 CBS Playhouse (with a different surrounding cast) that this feature was adapted from...
So when she eventually takes a backseat to the primary story (while mom and dad deal with their own mundane demons), there's hardly any tale to tell since, after all, a bad trip beats a bummer trip.
