The Next Wife
When Brent Cavanaugh (Nicholas Brendon - Relative Chaos) receives a call from the cops during a business meeting he is stunned to be informed that his wife Gretchen (Natalie Lisinska) has been murdered along with her business partner Sean (Nick Baillie), as they were heading to the airport on business. Concerned neighbours Casey (Chandra West - The Last Trimester) and Jason Hess (Vincent Ventresca) offer their help in anyway possible as Brent appears to be struggling to get over the death. What they don't know is that Brent had his wife and Sean murdered because he believed they were having an affair and now he plans to get in-between the Hess's and make Casey his next wife.
For about 10 minutes "My Neighbor's Secret" intrigued me, whilst I had a feeling I knew what was going on I wasn't 100% sure. But unfortunately we then get the reveal as we discover that the recently widowed Brent is not what he seems and not only has eyes for his neighbour Casey but he plans on making her his next wife. It means that "My Neighbor's Secret" becomes a run of the mill psycho movie, the disturbed Brent manipulating his way into the lives of his neighbours and getting between Casey and her husband Jason. There is some nice reasoning to why he is doing this but there is also a lot of over the top nonsense which makes certain aspects of the movie a joke.
Despite the over the top nonsense and some typically terrible TV movie dialogue the acting in "My Neighbor's Secret" isn't bad. Chandra West and Vincent Ventresca are solid as troubled husband and wife, Casey and Jason, plus for an attractive couple Dakota Goyo is well cast as their son. But the star of the movie is Nicholas Brendon as Brent because whilst he has some truly cheesy dialogue the way he flips from being happy to psycho is spectacular. It's such a shame that the writing is occasionally so bad that he starts to look like a pantomime bad guy because when the writing is good he is truly sinister.
What this all boils down to is that "My Neighbor's Secret" is just another middle of the road made for TV thriller. The minute you learn that Brent wants Casey it all becomes quite obvious and for everything which is good about it there is something bad.
